When one thinks of President Bush's philosophy on the war in Iraq, undoubtedly his oft-repeated catchphrase "stay the course" comes to mind. "Stay the course" has resulted in 3,020 dead Americans, 655,000 dead Iraqi countrymen, Abu Ghraib pictures, the Haditha massacre and more body bags for fundamentalists to rally around. Has the Bush administration "freed" the Iraqi people from Saddam Hussein only to turn them first into carpet-bomb targets, then throw them into the jaws of civil war?
Bush's so - called "new" strategy -- sending 21,500 more troops to Iraq-- seems oddly like the old "stay the course" mantra. When the advice of this nation's top generals, the findings of the Iraq Study Group and overwhelming public opinion are all ignored in order to escalate a war, I can't help but be skeptical at best, and morbidly terrified of the consequences at worst.