"Sacrifice, Sacrifice, Dance to the Music! Sacrifice, Sacrifice........"

Back here on November 24th I wrote the following:

Well, here we are with one week remaining in November plus one month remaining in the year. The death toll of American GI's in Iraq is approaching 2,900 and I'm wondering--if we have a really good December--might we not hit the 3,000 killed mark by year's end?

Well, damn, would you look at that? Did you all happen to notice when we hit the *magic* 3,000 GI's killed? It was this past Sunday, the very last day of 2006! Now I know how Sylvia Browne must feel when she nails one.

As proud of that as I am, I can't really take the credit I so seemingly deserve--as much as I'd like to. Truth be known, I owe it all to president Bush, Dick Cheney, and a bunch of folks in congress.

Yes, thanks to them, we had a very good December that enabled us to hit the big three, triple zero on the very last day of the year.

I recall a story from some years ago of a man cleaning his stove with some flammable solvent when the pilot light was overcome with temptation. It simply couldn't contain itself any longer. In the mans's excitement to extinguish the resulting flames, he mistakenly grabbed a can of gas to douse the fire.

That's what the president is about to do next week, despite the fact we told him in November we just wanted the troops to get out of Iraq. So, as further illustration of the president's detachment from reality, Bush is going to "surge" our Iraq troop strength another twenty or thirty thousand, to throw gas on the flames.

And how's he going to sell this to our troops and folks back home who spawned them? Simple. "Sacrifice."

See, the public told the president that's the opposite of what they wanted when they voted in November. So Bush waited for the Iraq Study Group's recommendations. But Bush didn't like those either.

So he talked to his general's in the Pentagon. No help there either. Then he went to his commanders on the ground in Iraq. Still Bush didn't hear what he wanted to hear.

So Bush interviewed his privates on the ground in Iraq and there he found support. So it was a coalition of his enlisted men and the munitions and materiel suppliers, the tanks and Humvee manufacturers, all that underground Iraqi black gold and the 25% of Americans polled expecting The Rapture in 2007 that convinced him to plunge forward to victory.

And all he is asking in order to accomplish this is more "sacrifice". That's pretty daring from one who has sacrificed little or nothing all his life. From bailing from his oil company with handsome profits just before it went belly up, to leaving the state of Texas which he governed with huge debts before moving on to destroy the US economy and endanger the rest of the Earth, Bush's sacrifices seem only to be enrichment of himself at the expense of others.

I wonder how General Casey, commander of our forces on the ground in Iraq who opposes increasing troop strength for Bush's lost cause, must feel being forced into early retirement by his reservist draft dodging commander who was AWOL at best, a deserter at worse, from his champagne guard unit avoiding the war in Vietnam?

And now, with the political tables turning against Bush and his rubber stamping congress gone, Bush generously reminds democrats, "It's time to set aside politics and focus on the future."

So prepare America for more "sacrifices" from one who knows not the meaning of the word. More of our sons and daughters will die. Prepare for a new year with more of the same old bullshit.

We've become a nation of enablers. Enabler citizens who enable our congress to continue voting the enabling funds to finance--despite our November protests--our enabling troops in Iraq to allow a small group of delusionary leaders to continue us down the same path we've been descending the past six years.

And if we're not uncomfortable enough to speak out louder and act out stronger in opposition of more of our sons and daughters coming home in boxes under the cover of the darkness of night, then why not just stop bitching about it, just chill out, and come back this time next year and tally the body counts of those who have died in Bush's surge in 2007--for nothing! Apparently 3,000 aren't enough already!

And around the end of November, 2007, I'll make my year end body count prediction. Look out Sylvia Browne!