And I'm not talking about the Chimperor....

No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.

Correntewire is an "official DoD site"?

Has THB been notified?

But I still believe
And I will rise up with fists!!

defenselink.mil.

Although they show "only" 3621. And I'm not sure this includes the 15 reported dead over the last two days. In fact looking closer I see the PDF only goes through July 14, so it certainly does not.

AP's latest has it at 3631. Not sure they're counting the latest 15 either.

But to pull out of the quagmire, thereby keeping those numbers from going up any more, would "dishonor" the ones who have already died. So we keep their deaths "meaningful" by...making the number of dead continue to go up.

I'm sure I'll understand this thinking one of these days. Let me recite some of the chants employed to reinforce pro-war sentiment: "Fight them there rather than fight them here." "They stand up so we can stand down." "We must see this through."

Nope, these ain't doin' it somehow. Hmm, Howzabout "Peace With Honor"? I seem to recall that being popular once upon a time, I wonder why they don't use it much these days?

Oh, wait, here's a new one, popular with current Republicans in the Senate: We want to break with the President over the war because we're in danger of getting our asses handed to us next election. But we can't because that would mean a win by ...Harry Reid. Therefore if troops continue to die it's....Harry Reid's fault. Not ours.

Hmm. Too long for bumper stickers I think. But they seem to like it and I expect they find much comfort there. Maybe we can trim it to "Our Kids Must Die To Keep Harry Reid From Winning." You think that'll inspire the country?

Only time will tell.. (there, i got that part mastered, now can I have a high-paying Pundit job please?)

Sorry about that, shouldn't post in the wee hours (clearly).