Tragedy grows, as war drags on

As the war in Iraq drags on with ever-increasing American and Iraqi casualties, two things are ever present in my mind. One is the image of our president standing on the aircraft carrier with a huge sign behind him that read “Mission Accomplished.” Exactly what mission has been accomplished? Is Iraq a stable democracy? Has Osama bin Laden been found and imprisoned? Are our young men and women coming home? The answer is obviously no. Second, does anyone else sense the similarities between Iraq and Vietnam? As George Santayana brilliantly put it, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Obviously, President Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld did not do too well in U.S. history or, for that matter, in world history. Vietnam was a horrible killing field where more than 50,000 of our best and brightest died. Was Vietnam turned into a democracy? Hardly. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were hellbent on invading Iraq simply because the first President Bush conducted a limited war and Saddam Hussein was not taken out of power. That's it — nothing else. I pray every day that some way can be found out of this immoral and costly war and no more young Americans need die to satisfy the egos of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld. Sally Wayton, Linwood - Atlantic City Press, December 29, 2006