All About Trey

Mr. 3000

Unfortunately while I was channel surfing this weekend, I ran across Mr. 3000. It really is an awful movie. But then we heard about the the 3000th US fatality in Iraq and I knew who the real Mr. 3000 is. It's our Dear Mr. President. 3000 men and women. That's half of the town I lived in when I was younger. HALF! Imagine living in a town and over the course of 3 years see half of your neighbors and friends just disappear. It should boggle the mind, but it doesn't. While 3000 is an awful number, it doesn't seem to register on a lot of peoples minds. It's more than the number of people who died on September 11th, but spread out over three years. They say it hurts less if you rip off the band aid, but maybe if you stretch it out over days, you learn to deal with the pain. I don't know. Tell that to the families who've lost sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters. If there was pictures of our soldiers coming home in coffins at Dover AFB every day, EVERY day, then it might stir some response.

I found this on the web. It's an interesting site. It's an animation, superimposed on a map of Iraq that documents every US and allied death in Iraq. It's not quite current, but it gives you a sense of the death, and chaos, looking back over three year. Definitely a different perspective.

Andrew's back and poses some good questions as usual. He's right. It's hard to get by the lies and half truths that lead us into this war. It's hard to just ignore the criminal mismanagement of the war from the utter lack of planning to the incompetent execution. But we need to figure out a way to put that behind us. What's done is done. We can (and should) discuss that later. The question is what now. Where do we go? Do we leave, do we surge? What do we do? I don't know. I really don't. It's easy to throw out the old cliche about if you're in a hole, stop digging. But this isn't a cliche. These are people's lives that we're talking about here. We need to do the right thing, no matter how painful it is.

Whatever happens, I just hope Mr. 3000 doesn't become Mr. 4000.

Labels: Iraq, President

posted by Trey @ 7:50 PM