days away from a new year, 20 lives away from 3,000 dead in Iraq

Ignore the Iraqi lives lost so far. (hell, most of America has been, as has our MSM) 650,000? perhaps MORE?
Ignore the wasted US contractor deaths (reported to be close to 3,000 on their own)
Ignore the 26,000 so seriously injured as to require removal from Iraq. head injuries, amputations, blindness, and worse

No, let's take an artificial number, a nice round figure like 3,000 and look at the rate of death in Iraq right now.
with 5 days left, and 4 deaths a day, we will hit that number before the end of the year. The nice thing about round numbers is that people can relate to them emotionally. really, except for some family members, the average person will care little whether it is 3001 or 2999. For most Americans, the actual number will be meaningless. But for three THOUSAND families, they will have lost a loved one. But it remains a cold, unimportant number. Just a damned number. Just the number of the damned.

How will people take note of this milestone? In Chicago, people will be watching football and drinking heavily. In New York, they might gather around a round ball. In LA, they will do their own thing.

And in Iraq, our troops will still be dying in a useless, pointless and destructive war that has made the entire region - no, the entire world unsafe. You know it. I know it. IN fact, the White House knows it. As allergic as they are to truthful disclosures, every time that Condi Rice or George Bush get on the tube, they ALWAYS INSTRUCT US that Saddam = bad man. That we are better off without Saddam. That real progress is being made. That our troops don't want to leave, and in fact, they want more brothers in arms to join them for the party. That MSM lies when they say there is a civil war. That the rest of the muddle east is about to change their stripes (except Israel) and suddenly become super-American allies. How can we be so sure that they are lying? Because their lips are moving.

All those lies, all those deaths, all that waste.

I wish all a new year of peace and prosperity. Of impeachment and justice. Of a return to democracy, a balance of powers, and foreign relations based on something other than greed and oil.

K&R.