also couldn't resist....

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President Bush is expected to announce that he is now sending more troops to Iraq, despite the fact that his generals, his military analysts, members of Congress, and most of the American people are against the idea. The reason he is doing it? To give Iraq a government that responds to the will of the people.

When I read it, my first thought was "how fitting this would be for those to read who are firm in pro-life, pro-war and its contradiction".

Let�s Count the Ways We�ve Sacrificed for the Iraq War

As children, we learned about Santa Claus � a pleasant, harmless myth. As adults, we�re being taught another myth � that ordinary people haven�t sacrificed anything during the Iraq war.

But the sacrifice myth isn�t an innocent belief we shed before adolescence. And the more people accept it, the more dangerous it is.

So let�s count our sacrifices. One of our biggest came at the start of the war, when we gave up freedom of the press. Media outlets agreed they�d only send journalists who�d be embedded with the troops, so everything we�ve read or seen has been censored.

Worse yet, in 2006, new media rules from the Department of Defense stated, �Names, video, identifiable written/oral descriptions or identifiable photographs of wounded service members will not be released without service members� prior written consent.� Just when should an embedded journalist hand out consent forms?

Photos of dead or wounded Americans in Vietnam swelled the number of anti-war protesters. Back then, we saw horrific images of GIs writhing in pain. We also saw dead GIs, not in coffins, but bloody and dismembered in the field.

Even before the new media rule began, embedded photographers rarely pictured dead or wounded GIs, according to Pat Arnow of Extra, a publication of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Instead, most of our media�s coverage of Iraq has pictured the injured GIs who can sit up in bed without grimacing to receive a Purple Heart. The few pictures of dead GIs haven�t shown blood or gore; they�ve shown funerals.

Photographers get close to the soldiers they�re embedded with and self-censor pictures of them. If they send their editors explicit photos, the editors declare the images �too graphic to publish,� like the Washington Post did on Jan. 7, 2007.

Embedded journalists also censor pictures of dead Iraqis. �Those pictures overwhelmingly show only one kind of victim � people and things shattered by their fellow countrymen, not by U.S. troops,� Arnow says.

When we do see a photo of an Iraqi killed by U.S. troops, the media distances us by labeling the dead Iraqi �an al-Qaida-linked militant,� or �a militiaman loyal to Osama bin Laden.�

Remember that photo of a terrorized naked Vietnamese girl running from a napalm attack? Today she would be called �a Vietcong guerilla� or �a Ho Chi Minh militant.�

But freedom of the press isn�t the only sacrifice we�ve made. Last month, Congress released �The Hidden Costs of the Iraq War,� a report showing the war�s cost so far at $1.3 trillion. That figure includes direct costs plus interest on the money borrowed to wage the war.

The money we spend on Iraq in one day could fund 9,300 teachers for a year, or 14,200 police officers, or 163,700 college Pell Grants, or 58,000 children�s tuition for Head Start, or 513,000 children�s health insurance. We�ve sacrificed all of those and more.

Worst, we�ve sacrificed human life. In September, the Opinion Research Business firm�s study of Iraqi households found that 1 million Iraqis have died due to violence since the U.S. invasion. We know of 4,000 American military who�ve died, but rarely does anyone ask about American civilian death counts.

And we�ll never know what the world lost when each of those people died. Each life was full of possibility. Who knows what contributions each person could have made to the workplace and the world, to their friends and to their families?

Mary Conroy is a Madison-based freelance writer.

All I could find on that board was complaining and whining about liberals and how they're all terrible and godless, etc., etc. 'Nuff said.

How about Caroline Kennedy for his VP? It's definitely feeling "Camelotty" these days.

Remember the last time a US President chose the chooser of his VP? (Hint: They call him "Darth Vader.")

In my family alone I have German, Irish, and Indian. I'm your basic Heinz 57. I don't go around saying I'm a German-Irish-Indian-American do I. No....I'm an American. I'm proud of my heritage, but I'm an American.....period.

When it comes to the idea of a black president.....I'm all for it.....if it is the right person and Obama is not. I'm all for a woman president but Hillary most definitely is NOT the one.

It's nice to see such a down-to-earth, likeable person be able to be on this ticket and not be part of the Washington machine. Her husband has a blue collar job. How many other candidates in recent history have been able to say that about their spouse? She is a REAL woman, has a family with kids and gut instincts to boot. I just think the whole idea of having a take-charge, no-nonsense state governor who knows how to use her noggin would be great for Washington and congress!

...with your post. I am truly beginning to wonder what the point of voting is. Is it just to fool the "masses" into thinking they truly have a voice?

I think a lot of Americans adamantly didn't want any more Bushes and didn't want any more Clintons. I'm feeling somewhat betrayed by Obama and very unhappy with his appointments so far.

I know what Vietnam did to my ex-boyfriend. It's not just something that goes away in a few months. It lasts a lifetime and can even affect future lives yet to be born.

Believe me, I share your anger, and I don't even have a relative who is in the military. I hope your son comes home soon, safe and healthy. My heart goes out to you, and if I could find a ((hug)) icon, I'd place it right here.

with the fact that we've lost around 3 million jobs this year, and the rate of job losses is not slowing down? Do yourself a favor. When you get that check in the mail from the government that you so disagree with, why don't you just send it back with a note saying *Thanks, but no thanks. I prefer to wait for the trickle.* I'm sure you'll feel much better about yourself then.

I really find it hard to understand why people like yourself fight so hard against policies that would benefit you. In case you haven't noticed, the stimulus plan he is proposing IS the middle class bailout. How many times on this board did pubs say *where's my bailout* during the first bailout? And now those same people are turning their noses up and trying to act like they are above it simply because a pub isn't the one who is trying to fix this mess.

It's not the economy that's killing this nation. It's people like you who would rather divide the country than accept the reality that the other side might actually have a good idea. Nixon would be so proud.

I personally feel that we have a lot of divorced parents and kids being raised by single mothers and these family values, etc. aren't being taught. Kids see their moms and dads dating different people. Woman having kids with multiple different fathers and men fathering many children by different woman. This is what our kids see. What else do we expect these kids to be when they are exposed to this stuff. Some kids are taught that they can't be successful instead of telling them they can be anything they want to be.

I think that not only should good values, etc be taught at school but I personally feel that the parents need to wake up and realize some of the monsters they are creating here. Too many parents rely on the schools to teach their kids things that the parents should be teaching them. Why parents rely on schools to raise their children.....I will never understand that.

Then on the other spectrum you have the well off families who buy their kids everything they want without teaching them how to be responsible with money and these kids end up being some of the irresponsible ones we have to pay for because they were never taught to save money to buy stuff. Instead it is credit cards, credits cards......buy now and hopefully have money to pay later.

What now feels like a lifetime ago, when I was in my 20s and still had all my "plumbing intact," I had menstrual problems to the point where I became anemic from always bleeding.

I was divorced, NOT in a relationship with anyone, and my OB/GYN prescribed birth control pills in order to try to control my cycle so I wouldn't bleed so much to help with the anemia. I don't know what I would have done if some pompous pharmacist refused to fill my prescription for those birth control pills based on his/her PERSONAL MORAL (and IGNORANT) beliefs, but if this person had done so, I'm sure I wouldn't have gone away quietly, because by refusing to fill a legal prescription from my physician, this person would have unilaterally sentenced me to an unhealthy life. (My imagination stops somewhere between my jumping across the counter and placing my hands around this person's throat.)

I do have to wonder, though, what would happen if a self-righteous pharmacist refused to fill a prescription for Viagra, Cialis, etc. In fact, I think I'd buy tickets and popcorn to watch that one!