Flashback: Anthony Gregory, April 20, 2004:
Just as the number of Americans who have died after Bush triumphantly stood in front of the now-famous “Mission Accomplished” banner exceeds by several times the U.S. death count of 140 before the war “ended,” the number of American fatalities after the Iraqi handover may make the current death toll seem like a drop in the bucket…
The fear is that pulling out may prove that the Iraq experiment was a failure, as the country descends into chaos and war. But even after Richard Nixon lost more than twenty thousand troops in his incremental attempts at “Vietnamization,” the United States eventually pulled out only to see South Vietnam fall to communism anyway…
As time goes on, and many more Americans continue to die in Iraq for reasons that increasingly seem unpersuasive to the public, the troops will come home. The only question that remains is how long this war, which now only survives by its own inertia, will continue to consume human lives. The United States can cut its losses now or we can maintain a war with no clear and just purpose, no victory in sight, and no realistic chance of reducing terrorism or bringing freedom to Iraq.