on this Memorial Day...

Today there are posts on the internet from soldiers serving in Iraq talking about how they work during the day helping to train the Iraqi's against the insurgents. Most all of them reference how, at night, the Iraqi's they train are the insurgents trying to kill them.

"I thought, 'What are we doing here? Why are we still here?' " said Safstrom, a member of Delta Company of the 1st Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry, 82nd Airborne Division. "We're helping guys that are trying to kill us. We help them in the day. They turn around at night and try to kill us." International Herald Tribune

Some reports put up to 50% of the Iraqi military and police force as actually being members of the insurgency. The US seems to be prolonging and extending the conflict both militarily and monetarily.

In the meantime, for the last few weeks, Congress was waffling over funding the war, facing off the president, demanding a timetable for redeployment of the troops and turning the responsiblility of Iraq over to its own people. Ironically, the US citizenry indicated that they want all of this to happen by having voted last November. What did the senators and representatives do? They gave the Czar $100 billion to continue his surge and, in effect, allowing the insurgents to soldier on.

Here's a quote asking an important question that is to the point:

Isn't it time that we either win this war or tell the American people why we can't? Isn't it time to recognize the great immorality of sending our neighbors' sons to die with hope we can do so without angering the enemy too much?

Oh, wait. This wasn't about Iraq. It's a quote by then Governor Ronald Reagan at a Veteran's Day address he gave in Albany, Oregon on November 11, 1967. He was talking about Vietnam. ["Reagan Says Indecisive Action in War is Immoral', New York Times, November 12, 1967.]

At the top right of this blog is a quote by George Santayana - "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

over and over and over...