Last night in New York, I was at the Javits convention center.
The Javits Center is hosting the Auto Show. I was there helping a friend raise money for a very worthy health related cause.
Inside my booth I sell raffle tickets.
Last night several men in military fatigues came over to look at the very expensive car we're raffling.
We're not at war where I live so military people interest me.
Since we don't see any military activity in Manhattan, whenever I spot an active duty service person, I'm always curious to ask them how we're doing.
Indeed, there is no war for most Americans, only for those who volunteer to serve and their families. This is just how the government wants it. If you and I had to deal with the consequences of war, Mr. Bush would have to make some drastic course corrections.
As a nation, we make zero sacrifices for the war and it just goes on and on with no end in sight.
I had a brief conversation with this reservist. He began by telling me that when he wasn't deployed with the reserves in Iraq he worked for a large bank.
He was more interested in looking at cars than talking about his time in Iraq, so I got right to the point.
Me:
"So how badly are we losing?"
Reservist:
"We're not losing."
Me:
"That's great, but what about all the insurgent attacks."
Reservist:
"Nah. We're turning a corner."
Me:
"We are? It looks bad on TV."
Reservist:
"They're hitting soft targets. They're hitting civilians."
Me:
"That's winning?"
Reservist:
"Anything that gets them [the insurgents] out in the open so we can kill them is winning."
Me:
"But they're killing civilians. Don't we need the Iraqi people on our side?"
Reservist:
"Hell yes."
Civilians are "soft targets". When insurgents kill civilians, this is good, this means we are winning.
Wrong. This means a civil war is raging.
The definition of winning has morphed into some bizarre acceptance of random savage attacks against a vulnerable and terrified civilian population. This is called civil war.
The Christian Science Monitor and every other news organization in the world, describes and confirms the unfolding catastrophe:
With each new suicide attack on Shiite civilians - the most recent killed 90 last Friday at a mosque run by a leading Shiite party - the United States' ability to shape Iraq's political development grows a little weaker and the country's simmering sectarian strife burns a little hotter.
http://www.csmonitor.com/...
Or here from the International Herald Tribune
BAGHDAD The war in Iraq has entered a bloodier phase, with American casualties steadily declining over the past five months while the killings of Iraqi civilians have risen tremendously in sectarian violence, spurring tens of thousands of Iraqis to flee from mixed Shiite-Sunni areas.
The new pattern, detailed in casualty and migration statistics and in interviews with American commanders and Iraqi officials, has led to further separation of Shiite and Sunni Arabs, moving the country toward a de facto partitioning along sectarian and ethnic lines - an outcome that the Bush administration has doggedly worked to avoid over the past three years.
http://www.iht.com/...
This reservist unknowingly provided sad testimony to the tragic reality of the civil war raging inside Iraq.
We're losing. We're losing badly.