Selfish Hedonist

Well, the pattern holds. Like in January (and every month since April), more U.S. troops died in February 2005 than they did 12 months prior. All the talk of corners having been turned, and insurgencies having been dealt fatal blows, seem irrelavent in the face of our casualty rate. Not that I'm convinced that they're telling us real numbers (such as deaths from the war that occur after troops have been evacuated from Iraq). And not to mention the 125 or so Iraqi police recruits slaughtered yesterday just because they could be:

The carnage came as Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi acknowledged Iraq's security forces were still unable to take on the insurgency without the help of U.S.-led troops.

"Iraqis should be able to start taking over more and more security responsibilities very soon," he wrote in the Wall Street Journal. "But we will continue to need and to seek assistance for some time to come."

April will be the real test: If the military death toll in April 2005 surpasses the 135 U.S. troops (and 140 total coalition forces), then there will be no talk of corners turned, insurgencies blown, or war being justified - at least for awhile.

But honestly, who knows? It could very well be that this brutal war based on lies and political calculations is the seed from which the flower of peace and democracy will bloom like a shining sun over a cold dark morn. Lebanon, Palestine, Afghanistan, Ukraine - peoples everywhere are heralding Bush's bold vision of Democracy! This begs the question - could the neocons with their ends-justify-means philosophy be right? Well, I'm going to withhold judgment for a little while longer. Until April, at least. But if they are right, and George W. Bush leads us into a glorious future of peace, prosperity, and private accounts, I'll give them their props. No way will I change my own loser philosophy. But I'll definitely give them their props.