“There is something in a war carried on by invasion which makes it differ in circumstances from any other mode of war, because he who conducts it cannot tell whether the ground he gains, be for him, or against him, when he first makes it.”
-Thomas Paine, The Crisis
News Item: “US Forces Face Bloody Start to June in Iraq”
Whatever idea there was of what victory would look like when the United States military rolled across the desert toward Baghdad in the spring of 2003, it bears little resemblance to what it could ever look like today – if any sort of “victory” is even a possibility.
The question becomes what ground we have gained as a nation in seizing Iraq. We now hold onto a tragedy that continues to unfold with each passing day.