Ultimate Terror:

War Without End

As President Bush and the U.S. Congress lock horns over Iraq via a $100-billion supplemental war spending bill, I am struck once again by a phrase I have heard countless times, that continues to be meaningless.

In a response to the passage of bills by both houses of Congress that include time tables for withdrawing troops, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said, "The president is determined to win in Iraq. The bill they sent us today is mission defeated."

The logical question one might ask (and, in my opinion, the media has failed to ask) is what will it mean to "win in Iraq"? With such an amorphous and multi-pronged "enemy", how will we know that the "mission is accomplished" as Bush declared it was about four years ago?

In response to a 2006 report that the threat of terrorism had actually increased, not decreased as had been hoped, former Secretary Rumsfeld (to my shocked ears) declared that there was "no way" to know whether or not we were being successful on that point. This just confirms that this administration has had no real plan for ending our occupation of Iraq and that this is truly the beginning of a war without end that will only bankrupt our country, kill and maim our troops, denigrate us in the eyes of the world and, in the end, do nothing to keep us safer here at home.

Some of those who oppose troop withdrawal say that Iraq will be "chaos" if we leave. What would you call the current situation?

For not the first time in this administration, the Secretary of Defense just admitted that "things may get worse before they get better." How many times do we need to hear that statement before we say enough is enough?

Many voices need to join me in saying, "End the war now" and "Bring our troops home."

This is the only way to truly "Support our Troops".

Jon Kaplan

Randolph