Bush's Death Toll now over 1,000

Wasted lives on an unneccesary war that had nothing to do with the war on terror; waged on the presumption of WMD that were never there. God Bless Jesus W. Bush.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/pics/08coffins.JPG

Protesters carry 1000 coffins, representing US troops killed in Iraq, to the Republican convention last week. Picture / Reuters

US death toll in Iraq reaches grim milestone[/font color][/font size]

08.09.2004

1.00pm - By WILL DUNHAM

WASHINGTON - The American death toll in Iraq topped 1000 on Tuesday nearly 18 months after President George W Bush launched the war that has become a central issue in the November US presidential elections.

US casualties in Iraq have surged in recent weeks, particularly among Marines, as Washington fights a guerrilla war that has no quick end in sight.

Bush's Democratic rival John Kerry -- a decorated Vietnam War veteran -- called it "a tragic milestone."

"Their sacrifice we feel on a very personal level, and our thoughts and our prayers are with the families that most recently have learned of the loss of a loved one," he told reporters in Kentucky.

The Pentagon said 998 US troops had been killed in Iraq along with three civilian employees of the Defence Department. In addition, 6916 US troops have been wounded in the war, according to the latest Pentagon tally.

Bush, speaking before news of the 1000th death was released, told a campaign rally in Missouri that Americans would support the families of the dead in their prayers.

"My promise to them is that we will complete the mission so that their child or their husband or wife has not died in vain," Bush said. "We will be there until the mission is finished, and then we're coming home."

US-led forces invaded Iraq in March 2003 in a war that Bush said at the time was to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. No such weapons have been discovered in Iraq.

Bush has since focused on the benefits of ousting Saddam Hussein and has sought to link Saddam's regime with al Qaeda, the group that carried out the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Bush, who declared major combat operations over on May 1, 2003, acknowledged for the first time last month that he had made "miscalculations" about the course of the war.

The vast majority of US military deaths have come in the relatively low-intensity guerrilla war that developed in the weeks after the collapse of Saddam's government and military. Much of the country has become a battlefield.

The pace of US military deaths has not diminished since the transfer of sovereignty to the interim government headed by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi on June 28.

In June, 42 US troops were killed, in July 54 were killed and in August the death toll was 66.

Bush administration officials sought to put the 1000 deaths in Iraq in the context of the war against terrorism.

"When combined with US losses in other theatres in the global war on terror, we have lost well more than a thousand already," Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a Pentagon briefing.

He said US and Iraqi troops had killed up to 2500 insurgents in the past month. The Pentagon has been reluctant since the Vietnam War to announce enemy casualties as it was criticised then for using the data to exaggerate military successes. The US military has, however, increasingly estimated Iraqi insurgent casualties in recent months.

Air Force Gen Richard Myers, chairman of the US military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged "a recent spike in the number of casualties" and attributed it to "both suicide attackers and indirect fire attacks."

"The enemy is becoming more sophisticated in its efforts to destabilize the country," Myers said.

Kerry, who is trailing Bush in the polls, said Americans felt the deaths of troops in Iraq deeply.

"And their sacrifice will not be in vain. We are committed to making the right decisions in Iraq and the right decisions for them here at home and that is the way that we will honour their sacrifice," Kerry said.

Kerry has in recent days described Iraq as "the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time", drawing fresh accusations from Bush that he was "flip-flopping" on the issue.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?reportID=562588&storyID=3590009

>Wasted lives on an unneccesary war that had nothing to do

>with the war on terror; waged on the presumption of WMD that

>were never there. God Bless Jesus W. Bush.

And God Bless John Kerry and John Edwards for voting to authorze the President to start that war.

Isn't it amazing how people who are planning on voting for Kerry and Edwards talk about the Iraq War as though it's some sort of criminal murderous spree - can any of you shed any light on what goes on in those heads of yours that allows you to hide from yourselves the fact that the Senators whom you are voting for in this election are the very same Senators who supported and voted for the same war that you think is nothing but one Big Murder-for-Halliburton's-Profit War Crime?

Howard Dean made this point long ago during the primary season, but you didn't listen to him: he repeatedly warned that it will be completely impossible for Democrats to attack Bush in the genreal election on the basis of his having started the Iraq War if the Democrats nominate someone who WAS IN FAVOR OF THAT WAR!

And yet, the Democrats seem to be doing exactly that which Dean said was impossible - arguing that Bush/Cheney should be defeated because they supported the Iraq war and replaced with . . .

uh . . . two Democratic Senators who supported the Iraq war.

I guess Howard Dean underestimated the depths of illogic and transparent stupidity to which the people in his party are capable of sinking.

Doug, read what columnist Gene Lyons (co-author of "The Hunting of the President") wrote back in August; it should clear things up for you, as you seem to be believing the Bush/Rove $100 million machine:

As usual, Bush's false dualisms obscure more than they reveal. See, liberating Iraq was never put to a vote. It wasn't even mentioned. Bush never asked Congress to declare war. Instead, he proposed using the threat of force as a diplomatic tool to push Saddam Hussein into compliance. The resolution Kerry voted for authorized the president to use "necessary and appropriate" force only to "enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq."

Only if Saddam defied U.N. arms inspections was the president empowered to make war to "defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq." By taking the issue to the Security Council, Bush did what Democrats asked.

"I have been 100 percent consistent," Kerry emphasized to USA Today. "Saddam Hussein was a threat, he needed to be held accountable to the U.N. resolutions. But it needed to be done in the right way. George Bush did it in the wrong way, and broke his promises to Americans."

At first, the policy worked. Saddam folded. He admitted U.N. arms inspectors, who could find no Iraqi weapons of mass destruction despite U.S. intelligence tips chasing them down multiple blind alleys. That's when Bush pulled a bait-and-switch. Having vowed to make war as "a last resort," he acted rashly. Certain to lose a promised U.N. Security Council vote decisively, he went back on his word, warned the inspectors to leave and started bombing. Media cheerleaders "embedded" with the troops gave little emphasis to Bush's about-face and covered the invasion of Iraq like the Super Bowl.

"The president misled America," Kerry told USA Today. "I don't know about deliberately, but he misled America, he misled the world. He misled Americans in Congress about how he was going to go to war. About what he would do. About why. We now have a new rationale"--the liberation of Iraq--"for having gone to war. ... When you break (your promise on policy), you've broken your trust."

Asked if he'd voted to give the president "the benefit of the doubt," Kerry said no.

"Issues of war and peace," he emphasized, "go outside of partisan politics. When the president of the United States says, 'This is the way I'm going to do something,' you ought to have the right to believe that president. And if there's anything that makes me more motivated about this (campaign), it is the fact that he went back on his word with respect to an issue that involves the lives of our young Americans. Americans know that this president did not go to war as a last resort."

By the way, Bush himself threatened to veto the $87 billion Kerry voted for because it limited millionaires' tax cuts. What Kerry voted against was financing the war with borrowed money. (end)

>And God Bless John Kerry and John Edwards for voting to

>authorze the President to start that war.

You're right, of course. Just like Johnson and the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, they were indeed part of the Senate who decided to grant such authorization to the president to declare war, without the necessity of Congressional approval being required to declare such a war. That however, does not negate the fact, that it was Bush alone, who decided to declare such a war. Doesn't that fact, put the SOLE blame for the travesty that is the Iraqi war in Bush's home court? He could have said NO!, just like he has the final say on whether the USA pushes the buttons to start a world wide nuclear holocaust! Bush and Bush alone, decided to involve us in Iraq.

>Isn't it amazing how people who are planning on voting for

>Kerry and Edwards talk about the Iraq War as though it's some

>sort of criminal murderous spree - can any of you shed any

>light on what goes on in those heads of yours that allows you

>to hide from yourselves the fact that the Senators whom you

>are voting for in this election are the very same Senators who

>supported and voted for the same war that you think is nothing

>but one Big Murder-for-Halliburton's-Profit War Crime?

I plan on voting for Kerry/Edwards, so my own thoughts on your questions are: those Senators, both of them, voted to support the President to declare war if the facts warranted such a declaration, which, imo, is not the same as voting to declare war in the Senate, and is certainly not an endorsement of the actions of the president doing so based on questionable, totally "unwarranted" facts.

Back to the milestone, where did all these deaths get us??

I guess the crosses placed on Santa Monica beach every Sunday will come to a halt, the guy says he would stop at 1000.

Seventy years ago -- when Father Coughlin, not Limbaugh or Hannity, was the radio rabble rouser appealing to Americans who like to be told how to think -- British historian/philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote:

As for nationalism, in so far as it is not undisguised greed, it may be defined as the association of a genuine ethical principle with a geographical or racial unit. It is argued -- let us say -- that the purity of family life is a matter of the highest moral import, and that it is best found between such and such parallels of latitude and such and such meridians of longitude. It follows that those who live in this virtuous area have a right, and almost a duty, to kill as many people as may be convenient in other areas, and to compel the survivors to pay tribute. Unfortunately, the superior virtue of the conquerors is apt to disappear in the process of conquest.

>Doug, read what columnist Gene Lyons (co-author of "The

>Hunting of the President") wrote back in August; it should

>clear things up for you, as you seem to be believing the

>Bush/Rove $100 million machine:

I'm well aware of what the resolution did, but anyone who tries to say that Kerry wasn't in favor of the invasion of Iraq is simply lying.

Just go read what Kerry said about the war at the time. He was entirely in favor of it. He continuously and (for him) unambiguously spoke about the need to use military force to remove Saddam Hussein from power. He did not express any opposition to the war when it began.

The first time Kerry began expressing reservations about the war was when Howard Dean was riding to the top of the primary polls based on his vehement anti-war positions, and Joe Lieberman had less support than Al Sharpton because of his pro-war views. Being the unprincipled, soul-less political wh-ore that he is, Kerry then - and only then - began to try to sound anti-war, even though, prior to that, he had been nothing but ardently pro-war, because he knew that reversing his position was the only chance he had to win the primaries.

I know that you know this, because I recall quite vividly at the time Howard Dean and his supporters were making exactly the point I am making now - that it is imposssible for pro-war candidates like Kerry (and Edwards and Gephardt) to run against Bush on an anti-war platform in the election when they were all clearly in favor of the war.

Are you consciously pretending that's not true or have you been listening too much to the Kerry/Soros/moveon.org $100 war machine?

>You're right, of course. Just like Johnson and the Gulf of

>Tonkin Resolution, they were indeed part of the Senate who

>decided to grant such authorization to the president to

>declare war, without the necessity of Congressional approval

>being required to declare such a war. That however, does not

>negate the fact, that it was Bush alone, who decided to

>declare such a war. Doesn't that fact, put the SOLE blame for

>the travesty that is the Iraqi war in Bush's home court?

But Kerry supported Bush's position and said it was the right thing to do. So when it comes to making the choice as to who should be President, I can't see how Bush's decision to invade Iraq can be used as a ground for replacing him with Kerry when Kerry himself, at the time, said it was the right thing to do.

He

>could have said NO!, just like he has the final say on whether

>the USA pushes the buttons to start a world wide nuclear

>holocaust! Bush and Bush alone, decided to involve us in

>Iraq.

Everyone knew at the time the Senate voted to give Bush authority to invade Iraq that it was almost certain he would do so. There were no doubts about it. And when he did, I didn't hear Kerry objecting that the authorization to invade had been misused. Did you?

>I plan on voting for Kerry/Edwards, so my own thoughts on your

>questions are: those Senators, both of them, voted to support

>the President to declare war if the facts warranted such a

>declaration, which, imo, is not the same as voting to declare

>war in the Senate, and is certainly not an endorsement of the

>actions of the president doing so based on questionable,

>totally "unwarranted" facts.

If Kerry and/or Edwards had voted for the war authorization, but then complained AT THE TIME (as opposed to months later when Democratic primary voters were pervasively anti-war) that Bush had mis-used the authority or invaded unjustifiably, then I could accept the distinction you are drawing.

But that isn't what happened. Kerry and Edwards supported the war WHEN THE INVASION OCCURRED. It wasn't until months and months later when rabid Democrats demanded anti-war rhetoric from Democratic candidates did they start criticizing the war.

Those are just facts. There were many Senators who voted AGAINST giving Bush the authorization to go to war because they were AGAINST the war. That's what Senators do when they're against a war - they vote against it. Kerry and Edwards voted for it - and then continued to voice support for it even as the invasion occurred.

I know that Kerry/Edwards supporters wish that weren't true. But it's still true.

>Doug, read what columnist Gene Lyons (co-author of "The

>Hunting of the President") wrote back in August; it should

>clear things up for you, as you seem to be believing the

>Bush/Rove $100 million machine:

Rick, rather than read moveon.org or Gene Lyons saying what Kerry's position is, why don't you read what Kerry himself said about his position. From today's New York Times:

"In a debate broadcast by ABC in May 2003, Mr. Kerry was asked by George Stephanopoulos whether the invasion of Iraq was "the right decision at the right time."

Mr. Kerry, speaking before it became clear that no stockpiles of banned weapons would be found so far and that the United States would face a prolonged insurgency, replied that he "would have preferred if we had given diplomacy a greater opportunity, but I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein. And when the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him."

So, Rick, let's review. Asked about whether he agreed with Bush's invasion of Iraq, Kerry said: "And when the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him." Especially for Kerry, it doesn't get much clearer than that, now does it?

In the black-and-white world of some small minds, if you criticize Bush you must at the same time be praising Kerry. If you like the Red Sox, you must hate the Yankees; if you like Fords, you must hate Chevys.

Even those in the Bush administration, however, know that there are unknowns. One of them -- Colin Powell the Eunuch -- has been silenced. When was the last time you heard anything from him? Maybe he's heading FEMA operations in Grenada. But another has spoken out with an analysis that sounds remarkably like something Kerry would say:

==Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld raised concerns last year in a memo to his senior staff that the war on terrorism wasn't emphasizing winning hearts and minds in the Islamic world, pointedly asking at the time whether ''we are capturing, killing, or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the religious schools and the radical clerics are recruiting, training, and deploying against us."

Yesterday, Rumsfeld said he believes there is a greater appreciation in the US government that long-term success in the war on terrorism will ultimately come from nonmilitary efforts.

''It is not a military problem alone, to be sure," Rumsfeld said. ''It is clear that the political, the economic, and the military have to proceed apace. I think that there's a better, deeper understanding of the fact that this is not a one-dimensional, military-only conflict; this is something that is multidimensional."==

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/09/08/force_alone_cant_beat_terror_rumsfeld_says/

>have you

>been listening too much to the Kerry/Soros/moveon.org $100 war

>machine?

Do war machines only cost $100 now? How affordable. :7

as a former navy man, my heart goes out to the families and friends who lost these brave men and women. the murdering thugs who killed them are scum. these men and women (as well as the iraqi civilians) were trying to make iraq a place for decent people to live and raise their families. the killers are out for power by any means and care not about life. we should honor these brave men and women for the job they were assigned to do. we should support the troops there today.

it is irrelevant if the war was right to start or wrong; it makes a nice debate. however, there is no choice but to see it through until iraq has chosen its own government and built the necessary institutions to insure a democratic government. we can not afford to let the murdering thugs highjack the country. like it or not, our future is being determined there. it is in our interest for the people of iraq to be sucessful in building a new nation.

i am waiting to hear from kerry as to his plans for iraq. he has told us that "W" stands for "wrong" as in fighting the insurgents in the wrong way. he says he will do it "right". so far, i have not a clue about what he will do except get other countries involved (because he and his wife speak french??); why these countries will suddenly see that their future is being determined there is a mystery.

we should be thankful for the great job our armed forces are doing; we need to have the political will to let them know they are appreciated. we should not demoralize them for our own base political purposes. they are fighting for our future. these men and women had their lives taken by thugs so that our future would be better.i respect and honor each one of them. may god watch over their souls.

>as a former navy man, my heart goes out to the families and

>friends who lost these brave men and women. the murdering

>thugs who killed them are scum. these men and women (as well

>as the iraqi civilians) were trying to make iraq a place for

>decent people to live and raise their families. the killers

>are out for power by any means and care not about life. we

>should honor these brave men and women for the job they were

>assigned to do. we should support the troops there today.

Big Joey:

You don't have to be a former navy man to mourn the loss of these senseless deaths, but you're a bit too quick on the trigger to automatically label those who oppose the American occupation as murdering thugs and scum. Put the shoe on the other foot and think how you would feel if another nation preemptively invaded and occupied the United States with an overwhelming force (as we did to Iraq). If you chose to fight against those occupiers, would it be fair for them to label you as "murdering scum"?

>

>it is irrelevant if the war was right to start or wrong; it

>makes a nice debate.

Did someone appoint you to speak for the families of soldiers who have lost loved ones in Iraq, or the families of innocent Iraqis who have had family members killed, to declare that whether or not the war is right or wrong is irrelevant? Your statement brims with exactly the kind of arrogance and hubris that makes Americans hated others.

however, there is no choice but to see it

>through until iraq has chosen its own government and built the

>necessary institutions to insure a democratic government. we

>can not afford to let the murdering thugs highjack the

>country. like it or not, our future is being determined there.

>it is in our interest for the people of iraq to be sucessful

>in building a new nation.

Considering that Ayad Allawi, the interim president of Iraq is a CIA asset, do you really think we can expect a democratic government there?

>

>

>we should be thankful for the great job our armed forces are

>doing; we need to have the political will to let them know

>they are appreciated. we should not demoralize them for our

>own base political purposes. they are fighting for our future.

>these men and women had their lives taken by thugs so that our

>future would be better.i respect and honor each one of them.

>may god watch over their souls.

ing tin

I know of no one, John Kerry included, who is disparaging our troops who serve there, other than perhaps the Republican Convention who makes fun of Purple Heart recipients, especially those who actually had the balls to show up for service. I hope you watched 60 Minutes tonight to see the new documents showing how the Air National Guard brass was under political pressure to let Dubya off for missing his physical and not showing up for duty. Kerry fought in Vietnam, Dubya evaded service and went AWOL. I know you don't like to be reminded of that, but a good dose of reality is called for when you spout these tired old pious platitudes, remind us of your own military service, and wave that American flag bearing the label "Made in China".

>these men and women (as well as the iraqi civilians) were trying to

>make iraq a place for decent people to live and raise their families.

Wrong. They were trying to avoid a court martial, by just following orders. Even a former Nazi can understand that; or maybe especially a former Nazi, because they were recruited under false pretenses also.

>the killers are out for power by any means and care not about life.

Washington, made wealthy by slave labor, managed to kill a lot of British soldiers. He cared about life, but he cared about his cause more.

>we should honor these brave men and women

We should feel sorry for the suckers.

>we should support the troops there today.

By working for their earliest return possible.

>it is irrelevant if the war was right to start or wrong;

Speak for yourself.

>there is no choice but to see it

>through until iraq has chosen its own government and built the

>necessary institutions to insure a democratic government.

People always say "there is no choice" when there is a better one.

>we can not afford to let the murdering thugs highjack the country.

Allawi (Hussein's henchman, until they had a falling out) already did.

>like it or not, our future is being determined there.

Like it or not, our future is being determined here on November 2.

>it is in our interest for the people of iraq to be sucessful

>in building a new nation.

What kind of interest? Economic interest? So we're there for the oil, after all? Or are you just talking about "saving face" ? Sending someone else to die, to protect your national pride -- can people who do that, sleep at night?

>i am waiting to hear from kerry as to his plans for iraq.

I am waiting to hear from Bush, on the same subject.

>we should be thankful for the great job our armed forces are

>doing;

Two words: Abu Ghraib

dear buckyxtc,

saddam's iraq would never be mistaken for a garden of eden; except for the supporters of his regime, very few people are sorry to see him go. saddam was a daily threat to his own people and as we know murdered thousands and treated the state treasury as his own bank account. the "murdering scum" are no friends of the people of iraq and are composed of saddam loyalists, syrians, iranians, religious crazies and some nationalists. they are mostly killing iraq's civilians, police, government officials, etc. they want to impose whatever their own vision of iraq they have rather than any type of democratic process. they blow up electric lines, water mains, civilian infracture that harm the people of iraq; they seem to make little distinction between americans and civilians. these ruthless people use beheadings to terrorize the population. these are not freedom loving restance fighters; these are people who want us out so they can have their own way with the country and its wealth.

want i want the election here to tell me is not how we got there (that is well known and that is why i consider it irrelevant) but where we are going; i want to hear the plans of bush and kerry on how this is going to be finished; will we see it through to the end where the people of iraq are free to chose their own government or will we cut and run and let the "murderous thugs" take over. there will be plenty of time for historical debates in the years to come, right now we should be occupied by what is happening today and what we will do tomorrow.

allawi is an "interm" leader and what happens in an election will determine his future. i do not know that he is a CIA asset. someone has to be a temporary leader until open and free elections are held.

finally, i am tired of reliving the vietnam war; the democrats complain about the focus on kerry and his "seared" memories that did not happen, the issue if he threw away his metals, someone elses metals, just the ribbions but kept the medals, etc. they tell us that all of this from the past is not important and then they go after bush about his guard service and suddenly thirty year history is important. as stated above, my focusis not on the past but the future; i do not care what either man did thirty years ago; if you are honest, there are questions in the thirty year past of both men; lets get over it and move on to the important issues facing us today.

the purple heart bandages were disgusting and angered me; it was a cheap childish stunt that was degrading. i do not think anyone can defend it.

like it or not, our future is in play in iraq. i want to know what the next president will do about it.

However you try to concentrate on the two candidates' policies for the future of the US activities in Iraq, you must use their performance in relation to Vietnam and Iraw to inform your view of the fitness of Kery and Bush to be President.

The Vietnam experiences are I suppose most related to the "character" of the candidates. I would suggest that at that time there were two equally honorable positions. One was that of opponents to the war who were politicaly active and did things like burn draft cards and even go into exile. The other, that taken by Kerry, was to fight in support of one's county's cause. That his experiences in the field led him to oppose the US' involvement does not detract from the fact that he served his country with honor and valor.

Others who had less strength of their convictions used student deferrals to avoid the draft and while Clinton fell into this category there were others in positions to benefit from influence and power who used several devices to avoid serving out of cowardice or an unwillingness to give up a dissolute lifestyle. I would suggest that both the current President and Vice President fall into this category. If you look at Cheney's biography you will find that as the regulations changed, he changed his personal cirumstances to the extent that his first child was born at an extremely convenient time for him to avoid the draft following a change in rules that then excluded only married men with children rather than all married men. Bush used his father's influence to get into the National Guard to train on an aircraft not then used by the Air Force, then went AWOL and finally failed to find a unit at College as he had signed to agree to do.

Bush's performance over Iraq similarly calls into question his suitability for office. It is now very obvious that the evidence showing Saddam's continued possession of WMD and his continued willingness to produce or develop them was highly dubious. The first and only constitutional reason for the war was that Saddam had stockpiles of these weapons and that he was willing to give them to terrorist groups willing to attack the USA. We now know that not only were there no stockpiles, he had given up production in the early 1990s and that the UN Inspection regime worked. The only ordinance to turn up have been empty warheads forgotten in an obscure shack on an airfield and one binary nerve gas shell left over from the Iran/Iraq war whose chemicals had deteriorated.

Yet we had a litany of "proof" based on "intelligence" that Saddam was acquiring or planning to acquire WMD materials. The "yellowcake" from Africa and the "nuclear centrifuge" tubing are but two in that infamous State of the Union speech. Both had already been shown to be false by that time. Colin Powell was dispatched with similarly dubious information to address the UN Security Council. Congress was misled by Bush with false information into giving him authority to sabre rattle. Now either this was deliberate (in which case Bush lied) or Bush believed it. If he lied he is unfit. If he believed it, he was insufficiently critical to not even ask how reliable the information was. In that case his judgement must be questionable and he is unfit to make decisions on behalf of the American people.

I would suggest that it is Bush's inability to make reasoned judgements that is the strongest reason for not re-electing him and the best example of this is the handling of Afghanistan. Here there was clear evidence that the CIA and Saudi funded foreign groups set up to fight the Soviet invasion had morphed into the fundamentalist Al Qaeda organisation. It is significant that the Bush administration conflates Al Qaeda with the Taliban Government. Relations between the two had reached a point where Afghan government officials were approaching the US immediately after 9/11 to co-operate in expelling what had become an arrogant foreign group of squatters. Of course the Taliban enraged the sensitivities of the West by the civil rights restrictions partly forced on the by the Wahabbi Saudis led by Bin Laden. What's worse their ban on opium production upset the tribal warlords who were only too pleased to be paid to fight by the US and then be left to raise raw heroin production to exceed pre-Taliban levels. What is undeniable is that by diverting resources, particularly intelligence staff and equipment, to planning the Iraq War, Bush fatally undermined the prosecution of those responsible for 9/11 and allowed the group to disperse all over the middle and far east.

dear londonbear,

what caused my posting (and this reflects my past military service) is that all of the prior postings treated the dead as a political football. i did not read anything about feelings for their families, there were no expressions of condolence, there was nothing about these men and women doing the jobs that they were assigned to do and doing them well, there were no personal tributes to them. there was no respect to their memory.

bewareofnick's original posting says: "we are committed to making the right decisions in iraq..." quoting kerry. he keeps talking about "right decisions" but does not say what they are. what i want to know is more than a bumper sticker slogan but what he has in mind and what actions he is going to take.

from past postings, you can read where i do not like bush or kerry. at present i plan on voting for neither man (i live in a state which is not "in play" so my vote does not mean much anyway). if i am questioning of kerry it is because i am old enough to remember the goldwater/johnson election where i supported johnson because goldwater was a crazy man who was going to get us deep into war and destroy our way of life; johnson expanded the war and now 30 years later those ghosts are haunting us; i have often wondered what would have happened if goldwater would have been president instead. after that, no politician got my support because of a television commercial or bumper sticker slogan (i well remember the girl picking the daisy pedals followed by the mushroom cloud commercial of johnson; probabally the best commercial made until "willie horton").

the last two politicians i deeply loved were robert kennedy and hubert humphrey. i was passonate about both; these were men of courage who spoke from the depth of their souls; they told the public exactly what they wanted to do and where they were going. they told you what the "right decisions" were going to be. they did not read polls and were leaders. in 1948, long before civil rights became a reality (except for gays), hubert humphrey got the civil rights plank in the democratic platform; he did not read a poll and follow the result, he knew what was right and acted accordingly and told the voters up front. that is what i want for a politician to get my support; kerry still has me waiting; i'm here for the taking if i get plain talk.

Let me get this right:

- The death toll is at a all time high

- The defeicit is at an all time high

- Bushs poll numbers go higher

What am I missing here folks?

>Let me get this right:

>- The death toll is at a all time high

Isn't it weird? We all thought the "death toll" would decrease. I thought that, for sure, by now the total number of troops killed would have gone down from 900 to about 200 killed, but instead - bizarrely - it just keeps rising, so that it's now, as you brilliantly point out, at "an all time high."

>- Bushs poll numbers go higher

>

>What am I missing here folks?

The same thing as Oz's scarecrow.

Polls show that most Americans believe that Bush's presdiency has been a failure on most fronts, and yet, it's looking more and more certain that he will be re-elected.

At some point, will you liberals allow yourselves to admit that the reason for this is that no matter how disliked the Bush Administration is, most people realize that the alternative - YOU - is infinitely worse?

I think that the GOP could nominate Dog Shit as their Presidential nominee and, as long as liberals were seen and heard by the American electorate, Dog Shit would win.

All I can say is, there's still a lot of time before election day. If you don't want to find yourself eating it, I'd keep your crowing to a minimum until then.

As for the death toll, last night there was a sizeable candlelight vigil here in the heartland (Kansas City) mourning the rising number of deaths in Iraq. A couple of hundred people gathered at one of the city's most visible intersections holding candles and signs saying "1000 Deaths," "How Many More?" and "No End In Sight." This in a city that's relatively conservative, where patriotism and flag-waving are considered positive values. Lots of passers-by honked or flashed "V" peace signs as they went past the vigil. Interestingly, quite a few taxi drivers made signs of support.

Bush may have had a bounce in the polls, but I'm not sure the polls are picking up the complete picture this year.