Troop Injuries: Highest Toll Yet

Good people-
While George Bush continues to blabber away, trying desperately to get enough votes to win himself a second term, our troops are sustaining record numbers of severe injuries in Iraq. Due to Bush's miscalculations and horrific errors in judgement, American soldiers are paying dearly. both physically, mentally, and spiritually. Their lives are being changed forever daily. The Washington Post reported today that some 1100 US soldiers and marines were wounded in Iraq during August, by far the highest combat injury toll for any month since the war began.

We hear from the Bush administration phrases like, "when we took Baghdad." We have not taken Baghdad or any part of Iraq yet. Battles continue to rage in Najaf, Fallujah, Ramadi, Samarra, and Baghdad, all of which remain under the control of insurgents fully two months after the so-called transfer of political authority. Don't let anyone tell you we are experiencing success in Iraq or that we are even making the slightest progress. We are not.

Col. Ryck Beitz, commander of the 31st Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad, reported that the rate of acute cases jumped from 2 out of 4 to 3 out of 4 ER patients. The injuries are increasing in number and are also increasing in severity it appears.

What are our troops up against? They are facing very difficult situations where children are lobbing grenades at them. What soldier wants to "put a bead on a kid?" said Capt. Chris Ford, company commander of the 1st Cavalry. The children are paid $150 to toss grenades at American soldiers.

Why are we in Iraq? Is there a good enough reason for our soldiers to die? I do not think so.

"Saddam is a bad man" is not a good enough reason. There are many bad men in the world. Surely our foreign policy will not be to take out all bad men in the world, will it? Or will it? For every bad man we kill, we spawn perhaps a dozen more men who hate America.

Is this a smart plan? I don't think so.

[Click on the blog title to go to the WaPo article.]