DSC00846

DSC00846

25,000 casualties in Iraq

A casualty is defined as those killed or wounded.
That figure comes from the mouth of Gary Hart, former senator and presidential hopeful in the mid 80's. He was a guest on Bill Maher's show this past weekend.
I was not surprised at the number. My only surprise is that no one is more people are not up in arms.
There is another article I ran across the web, http://www.lies.com/wp/2003/10/20/us-deaths-in-vietnam-and-iraq-by-month/ that does more of the comparisons that I have made about Iraq and Vietnam. That site goes into depth to show that we are right on track, if not ahead of the pace of reaching the amount of dead and wounded in Vietnam.
Now Iraq is headed into a civil war (to quote a G'N'R song, "what's so civil about war anyway?") we only a few REAL choices left for the US in Iraq. Leave and watch the country fall into chaos, or stay and which the country fall into chaos UP CLOSE.
I thought that I would never live to see the horror of Vietnam in the present day. Those who would like to argue that the Iraq war is nothing like Vietnam let me present you with these observations:

1. Who is the REAL enemy? A problem in Vietnam, as in Iraq is that it is nearly impossible to tell who the enemy is. Anyone on the street could be a potential enemy. Those that we train to fight turn around and use what we have taught them against us.
2. How do we get out? A major flaw with Vietnam and now Iraq is that there is no "exit strategy" We are engaged in a war with no easy way out. There is no way to transfer power over the government when the government is in chaos.
3. Civil War. This is the newest point. Now that we have Shia versus Sunni violence escalating, it is becoming evident that this could end up being a "wider war". It is almost a given that Iran, with a majority Shia population, will back Iraqi Shias against the Sunnis and the US will be forced to take sides. This could lead to the bombing of Iran and another great series of unknowns to follow.

This war must end now. Iraqis must defend themselves. I know that sounds harsh, but the US are not the worlds police force, and nor should we ever be used that way. Let the Arabs fight their own war. Bring our armed servicemen home before we end up worse then we already are.

I'm back to being a geek again. I'm too used to late nights. A blog from my work treo... Because I can... This will need to be copied to MySpace where the most current stuff is. I will never let one person take me down.

A blog from the treo650. How quaint.