Twenty-five Americans died on Saturday in the Iraqi nation-building exercise. On Sunday, the Bush Administration announced the deployment of 3,200 additional soldiers, which is the first installment in an overall plan to add 21,500 additional troops in Iraq. The doctor prescribed medicine. It made the patient sicker. The doctor prescribes more medicine.

Don't bother to mention that most of those twenty-five were the result of a helicopter crash.

This excursion into Iraq has become a very sick joke. Bush made the tough decision to get us in, now he has to make the tough decision to get us out.

It seems to me that we may have lost sight of who our enemies are and which ones are the most dangerous. It seems to me that America's most dangerous enemies are, in the following order, Russia, Venezuela, illegal alien invasion from Mexico, China, Iran, Al Qaeda, and Iraqi "insurgents." Plans need to be formulated for dealing with each of these enemies.

With regards to the situation in Iraq I think our goals should be two fold. 1.) Contain and eliminate Al Qaeda in Iraq. 2.) Contain and roll back the influence of Iran in Iraq.

At this time, I don't see how commiting an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq to help a government that is more interested in representing the interests of the Shia sect over the interests of other Iraqis is in American interests. In addition to this, the current Iraqi government seems to be much closer to Iran than it is to the US.

If the additional troops are allowed to actually go after the Shia and Sunni death squads that are killing innocent Iraqis then the additional troops may actually help American interests, however, unless the troops are actually allowed to fight it really doesn't matter how many additional troops are committed to Iraq. Since toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein, the American and allied forces have not been allowed to fight aggressively enough. At a minimum, this will need to change.

In the final ana-lysis, the President and his supporters have yet to convince me how exactly commiting an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq to support an Iraqi government that seems more closely allied with Iran than with the US is going to serve American interests in the Middle East or elsewhere in the world.

Opie-- what's your point? Are their deaths any more meaningful or productive (for us or for Iraq) for having been some of the inevitable non-combat deaths in a combat operation?

This marks the first time I think I agree with the majority of you. The Iraq invasion was pointless, it was and continues to be expensive (both financially and in terms of soldiers killed), it is not getting us anywhere and there is no apparent end in sight.

See Reader, if you agreed with us more often, you wouldn't be wrong most of the time.

skeptic,

My point being is their deaths are being lumped in with folks who died directly because of combat and used to make a political point. If their deaths occured in the US would we be talking about them?

Opie: Their deaths didn't occur in the US, they occurred in a combat operation in Mesopotamia. Would they have died if we were not in Iraq? Probably not.

The "political point" that Flynn made was that their deaths aren't doing any good (i.e., the "medicine" isn't working). Are you supporting or undermining Flynn point?

Haven't heard from the Neocons lately...

Opus, is there something wrong with you? Helicopter crash, road side bomb, shot in the field (or village): combat death is combat death.

During the summer the troop presence in Baghdad increased by 9,000 and not only did it not stop the violence, but only made it worse.

Perhaps the new troop increase is to eliminate the Madhi Army and al-Sadr, although al-Sadr is such a popular figure in Iraq now that if the Maliki government were to take this approach they would be alienating themselves from their own people.

Touche.

John Kerry at an international conference bad mouthing the U.S. on Iraq, Kyoto, kissing terrorist's a$$es. Scary.

Makes Bush look like the right choice.