Bring 'em on, August 23rd, 2005

Just one of several attacks by Iraqi insurgents on August 23rd, listed in Today in Iraq:

Bring ‘em on: Five Iraqis, one US soldier, and one US civilian contractor killed and twenty people wounded, including nine US soldiers, a civilian American contractor, six Iraqi civilians and four Iraqi police officers, in suicide bombing of the Diyala Provincial Joint Coordination Center northeast of Baghdad.

Hey, just one more mission accomplished for the bad guys. Thank you George W. Bush.

Meanwhile, the total number of wounded Americans (listed officially) just surpassed 14,000.

Keep an eye on the war cost meter. It's going to pass the $200 billion mark before the end of August.

And Americans killed in action? Sadly, if the August toll keeps up, that number will probably pass the 2000 mark before the end of September. Who's next? Who's father or mother? Who's son or daughter, brother or sister?

What are we doing in Iraq?

Ask Dick Cheney. Addressing a group of veterans in Missouri last week, Cheney said that the United States will not give up the fight against insurgents in Iraq. "They believe that America will lose our nerve and let down our guard," said Cheney. So we are fighting to prove that "America" has the nerve to keep on fighting. Well, that attitude should serve us well if we get bogged down in another quagmire in, say...oh, what the heck! Let's invade Iran too!

How convenient that Cheney didn't have to name names with such a sweeping characterless sacrifice as "America." It's always easier to speak of the sacrifice of the nation as a whole, than to speak of the actual individuals who make the sacrifice. Keeping a distance from their suffering is the key to the Bush administration's resolve. It's easy to fight the war when you don't suffer any pain yourself.

Let's see, what views did Dick Cheney have when his turn came around to fight just to show that "the United States" had nerve? Oh yeah, it was the 1960's. He told a reporter years later:

I had other priorities in the '60s than military service.