Griper Blade: We've Lost More People in Iraq than We did on 9/11

Dustin Donica of Spring, Texas, was officially the three thousandth american military fatality in Iraq. You don't have to be especially insightful to know he won't be the last. December of 2006 has been the third deadliest month for americans in Iraq as attacks increased by a 22% compared to the last three months.

President Bush is considering sending in more troops, but that really would only increase the number of targets and increase the violence. The various insurgents aren't a force that will be overwhelmed on the battlefield. They're more like criminal gangs -- rival mafia families in a gang war. It ends when it's over, not when it's stopped. It isn't something like a house on fire that can be put out, it's an explosion in slow motion. You can watch it grow, you can get the hell out of the way, but stopping it isn't an option.

There are very few who wouldn't trace the war in Iraq back to September 11, 2001. 2,973 people died that day. We've now lost more people in this war than in the event that sparked it. For the people of Iraq, the war has been 9/11 after 9/11 after 9/11. It's impossible to say how many people have died. Reports disagree drastically. Iraq Body Count has the lowest estimate with more than 52,000. The highest estimate is from the medical journal The Lancet -- about 600,000. In either case, a horrific number of people have died with more dying every day...

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