War

I didn't have a chance to commemorate the two-year anniversary of the war in Iraq on Saturday, but I'd like to send my respects and regards to the troops and Iraqis who are, in good faith, working through a very difficult and dangerous situation. Regardless of how you feel about how we got here, I think we can all wish them well in their everyday work to make Iraq a safe and stable place.

We have no idea how many innocent civilians and troops stuck obeying Hussein have died, but 10,000 or 100,000 are numbers that get tossed around. Given that Iraq is less than 10 times smaller than the United States, that would be like having 100,000 or 1 Million people die here--deeply traumatic to the national conciousness. It's important to for Americans to acknowledge that cost of war, because it is most definitely done in our name. You can help the Iraqi people by donating to Oxfam.

As of today, acording to I-casualties.org, we have had 1698 coalition military deaths. These men and women, mostly teenagers and very young twenty-somethings, took an oath to obey their military commanders so that their country would always have a ready defense at hand. They rely on the rest of the citizenry to look after their interests, risking their deaths and asking them to kill with prudence and caution. We often don't rise to that expectation. You can support soldiers charities here.