Christmas Day, 2006 marked a horrible milestone in the U.S. intervention in Iraq. On that day, the deaths of American military personnel in Iraq surpassed the 2,973 lives lost in the attacks of September 11, 2001. This doesn't even include the loss of life in Afghanistan, nor the tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens who have died in this misbegotten invasion of a country which posed no threat to the United States.
Rather than liberating a people longing for freedom, we have instead uncorked the bottle of sectarian violence that had been kept contained by the cruel regime of Saddam Hussein. Now we find ourselves paying in lives, money, and other resources; and bogged down in a civil war; a fact our President refuses to recognize. He calls it "resolve". I prefer the term "stubbornness". Mr. Bush, it is not a virtue to fail to modify tactics if current ones are failing. It is not "flip flopping" to adapt to changing conditions.
Amid the holiday celebrations with family and friends, I hope all of us keep in our thoughts the lives lost in this miserable Iraq war, and their loved ones. It is also imperative that we put pressure, and keep pressure, on our elected representatives to bring this misguided adventure to a close as soon as possible.
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