Don't forget

Casualty count at 1,825 now in Iraq. Big memorial service for those based in Brookpark on Monday. This is still a relatively low number as war casualties go, but I doubt any of the families would commit to that statement. This is also not considering the several thousand wounded and the 20,000+ Iraqis that have died as well. I think the bigger picture here is to consider that 3,030 people lost their lives on 9/11. Should we reach that number of military casualties in Iraq, it will really make it hit home that we've done the wrong thing. At this moment, we've lost 2/3rds the number killed on 9/11 in Iraq and we still haven't captured the man responsible. Add the several hundred that died in Afghanistan and we're almost there. The difference in my opinion is that the former were destroyed in one day by a ruthless villian and the latter were killed because of U.S. policy directly. I wouldn't make this comparison, if Bush would stop reaffirming the belief that the reason we're in this war is because of 9/11. In seeking justice for that attack, it doesn't make sense to double the casualty list by throwing U.S. soldiers into the wrong bonfire.

UPDATE: Death count raised to 18 on Wednesday.
from Juan Cole:
"Guerrillas killed four more later on Wednesday, one in Ramadi and 3 in Baghdad. This means the one-day total for August 3 was 18, not 14, because of the massive bomb that killed 14 early Wednesday at Haditha.
Although a US military spokesman said that the insurgency was not expanding, there are more attacks per day on US and other Coalition troops in summer 2005 than there had been in summer 2004, and the rate of US soldiers' deaths in the past three weeks has been unprecedented."