By The Numbers

Now that the death toll from “Operation Iraqi Freedom” has reached one-thousand, maybe the American public will finally begin to sober up to the fact that, well, people are really dying “over there”, and begin to question the competence and policies of those that got them into this mess.

Sadly, the voices of dissent are muted and scattered. While the far-right media juggernaut continues to slice and dice--Kerry has been spun into a traitorous wimp, Bush into patriotic überman--the larger questions of policy are lost in the backwash of who’s the more manly man. Soldiers continue to die in a hostile foreign land that was, and is, no threat to us, and the commander-in-chief that put them there continues to gain in stature. How strangely comforting it would be if Rod Serling were to step into the frame and offer his calm assurance that yes, we are in the Twilght Zone.

Not one of the reasons given for the Iraq war has turned out to be true. Such egregious miscalculations (lies?) would, you would think, be met with a resounding political thumbs down from a betrayed electorate. Not so in BushCountry. The Bush team, and the Republican Party, have masterfully changed the debate to their advantage, while those who opposed this calamity (anybody remember Howard Dean?) have been politically marginalized, with little, if any, help from the inept Democratic presidential candidate and the National Democratic Party. Half of the electorate still believes that it was a good idea to go into Iraq. That is a marketing miracle that puts Goebbels to shame.

As we continue to “stay the course” the next thousand take their place in line. Who do you think will be the last to die for this mistake? He or she is somewhere out there as we speak. Maybe someone you know.