Reflections on Number 4355+909

To date, four thousand three hundred and fifty-five American troops have died in Iraq since the deplorable Bush administration launched its illegal “shock and awe” bombing of Baghdad on 22 March, 2003. This month alone (October) fifty-seven more American lives ended in Afghanistan, bringing the total to date of nine hundred and nine Americans lost.

It bears noting that credit for the accuracy of these figures comes from icasualties.org , which maintains the numbers according to months, years, and individual coalition members.

In his less than thoughtful mind, Cheney and Rumsfeld’s political puppet Bush didn’t ask any questions; didn’t pose any “what ifs”, didn’t offer a possible alternative to the assumed immediate end with all-out victory. Not even “Why go into Iraq now when we know bin Laden is in Afghanistan” – or, thereabouts?

Five and a half weeks later, a fighter plane landed on the deck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln and its civilian passenger alit. Clad in a spanking new flight uniform and cradling a spanking new helmet in his left arm, the puppet president of the United States strutted across the deck to announce, “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.”

Prevailed? We did? Did Bush understand the meaning of that word? Doubtful. A short three years later (20 August ‘06) this sophomoric failure claimed in his weekly radio address, “We will prevail”. Now “prevail” was in the future. Does verb tense depend on who scripted his public lies: the snarling V.P. or, Bush Brain Karl Rove?

One cannot help but wonder how the co-architects of the Iraqi war sleep every night in their respective bed of lies.