Lost Lives - Dismal predicament

http://www.wvgazette.com/section/Editorials/200311044/

WE CAN only echo the words of columnist Paul Krugman in Monday’s New York Times: This can’t go on.

The 16 American soldiers killed Sunday in Iraq had no defense against the cheap, easily-accessible weaponry that brought their helicopter down. To secure U.S. troops against such attacks would take a commitment many times the size of the forces now on the ground in Iraq. It is time to admit that the United States is enmeshed in a dismal predicament.

President Bush’s approval ratings are slipping. Soldiers’ families — loyal, highly patriotic Americans — are doubting the value of their sons’ and husbands’ and fathers’ sacrifices. Morgantown native Ernest Bucklew’s final e-mail said “this is a letter from hell.” Sadly, he was one of those killed in the worst attack of the supposedly finished war. His uncle told reporters: “Personally, I see no use for the war. This country shouldn’t be starting wars.... I think all these boys should be sent home.”

And, unfortunately, too many of the troops now trying to impose a semblance of order in Baghdad and Tikrit and Fallujah are not boys at all but family men and women, mature, thinking individuals who leave large empty spaces in their communities at home and whose critical faculties tell them the unpleasant truth as they go about their dubious mission abroad.

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I have been monitoring this paper for several months - they have been cheerleaders for *Co and have only had minimal against the war LTTEs - this seems a 180 degree shift for them.