Official count of Americans killed in 9/11 attacks:
2,819.
Official count of Americans killed in Iraq: 2,813 as of 10/31, with 13 additional troops killed in November as of 11/5, bringing the total (so far) to 2,826.
Where is the pseudopatriotic outrage against the people responsible for the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans this time around?
Oh, yes - the outrage is there! With Bush's job approval ratings and approval of his handling of war the 30s, we know that people are upset about the war and, in particular, about Bush's conduct of his war.
But are they upset enough?
For my part, I wonder how Bush's approval ratings can even be THAT high given the problems the country faces both here and abroad. And, things get even worse when we add to these devastating figures the number of Iraqi civilians who have been killed in this ill-advised invasion...with some reports indicating that the number of civilian deaths per month is in the thousands!
Nobody would say that 9/11 was not a terrible, terrible tragedy. But what has happened since then is beyond words. (Especially since very little of what has happened since 9/11 is actually linked in any substantive way to 9/11!) How some Americans can justify the deaths of so many innocent people, I simply cannot comprehend.
Yes, yes, Saddam was sentenced to death, but so were nearly 3,000 American troops and tens (hundreds?) of thousands of Iraqi civilians.
And for what? What have we accomplished...other than spending approximately half a trillion dollars, increasing the size of the insurgency in Iraq and elsewhere (don't even get me started on Afghanistan, where the Taliban resurgence is growing daily!), decimating Iraqi quality of life, destroying our allies' opinion about this country, and increasing bitter partisanship in the USA?!?
I'm glad the the President no longer refers to his plan as "stay the course," but I am appalled that our Vice President now affirms that we are supposed to continue on, "full speed ahead." (Was anybody fooled by the President's pathetic change in rhetoric a few weeks back?)
When will we see the beginning of the end of this nightmare?
Oh yes - TOMORROW!
Please...please...please go vote...
...and drag everybody you know with you!
Remember, remember, the 7th of November!