A wretched anniversary

It was six years ago today that George W. Bush donned a flight suit and landed on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln. The millions watching this show on TV did not realize that the carrier was just off the coast of Southern California, an easy ride in the presidential helicopter. Then the Decider put on a suit and tie and stood beneath that famous "Mission Accomplished" banner to talk about 9/11, how the perpetrators "got war," how the regime with weapons of mass destruction was brought down. Except that Iraq was in no way the perpetrator and there were no weapons of mass destruction.

It is clear that violence in Iraq is has gone way down; it is nowhere near the violence of 2006-2007. But it is going up again. Last month 355 Iraqis, 290 of them civilians, were killed (and that is not counting 80 Iranian pilgrims who were killed.)18 US troops were killed, the most since September.

Today the number of US troops who have been killed in Iraq stands at 4,281. Just Foreign Policy [www.justforeignpolicy.org] estimates that 1,320,110 Iraqis have died as a result of Bush's invasion.

What an accomplishment for The Pilot who was The Decider.