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Vote to Stop Fighting In Iraq Susan Estrich My mother, may she rest in peace, taught me that there was much to be learned by reading the obituaries. My mother could figure out the future that way - as in, who had lost a wife and might be looking. I have different motives. I see how the war has been going. It's another way of seeing the future. My little pile started telling me before today's headlines that October was looking to be a record month, the highest in two years. In the 30 hours that ended Wednesday afternoon, 11 soldiers were killed. That brought the monthly death toll, just over halfway into the month, to 70 soldiers, almost as many as died in all of last month, which was more than in August or July. Even the president, especially the president, is now comparing the war to Vietnam, and the latest offensive to the Tet Offensive. Is that supposed to make people more supportive? Are we supposed to be so intimidated by the idea that we are being manipulated by the unseen hand of a literal PR jihad that we sacrifice our right to criticize a war that has no course and a President who cannot find his direction? Isn't that the definition of their winning? I will be happy to debate them or to ignore them, but not to be intimidated by them. Story Continues Below
The numbers that stare out of my slips of paper are the ages of the men, all men in this latest batch, who have died. A 40-year-old in the Marine Reserves. A 37-year-old and a 48-year-old. These are not old men sending young men to war. These are not all of us sending all of our sons to war. These are middle-aged men who have died, not the hope of tomorrow, but today's best, the men whom women and children were relying on now. We owe them much more than we are ever likely to give them, and the question of who among them will be the last to die is being asked already. If this is the next Tet Offensive, are they the price? How do you send a message that you want to stop paying it? In the old days, of course, people took to the streets, demonstrated, burned draft cards, refused to serve. ... In the old days, different burdens were placed on different people, and it changed everything. There was, however, one way that a message was sent then and is still sent now. The most obvious, effective, appropriate method of communication in a democracy. The reason all those ads about the war are springing up all over the country, all of a sudden. Voting. Three weeks is a long time in politics. Something could happen. Individual races still have their own dynamics. But however often voters may say they are voting on "bread and butter" economic issues, the increasing dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq is driving this election toward a national referendum on George Bush and his course in Iraq, which the president is destined to lose. The latest polls show that two-thirds of voters are dissatisfied with President Bush on the war and think the war is going somewhat or very badly. And that was before the latest round of deaths, in a month that is also shaping up to be one of the deadliest for Iraqis, some 767 of whom have already been killed this month, double the usual monthly average. Stay the course? What course? The Democrats are getting the winning issue they tried so desperately to avoid.
COPYRIGHT 2006 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC. Editor's note: Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
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