Iraq (cont.)
When I wake each morning, I stumble into the kitchen and pour myself a cup of coffee. I stick the mug into the microwave, enter thirty-three seconds and push the start button. Somewhere in the time that it takes the coffee to heat, I hear on the news how many more American lives have been lost in Iraq. Today, that number is at least seven. The number of wounded aren’t reported.
It’s frustrating and quite depressing to start each day this way, but avoiding the news altogether is not an option. My frustration reached new heights this past Sunday while watching the various news programs. To hear Republican Senator Richard Lugar (Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee) say that he has no idea what the Bush plan is for transfering power to Iraq, was and is incredibly shocking.
Lugar, along with senators Joseph Biden and John McCain have been visiting every news show that is willing to listen to them, publicly calling for the details of the administration’s plan in Iraq. They point to a long-standing division within the administration between the vice president’s office and the State Department as to what the plan should actually be. Those in the administration deny such a division, but as Biden points out last night on the NewsHour, “If there isn’t a division within the administration about what the plan should be, then that means there is a plan and they’re not telling us. Why? I don’t get it. I mean, I truly do not get this.”
To hear such frustration in the voices of our senators is cause for frustration in of itself. In the meantime, Shi’ite-Sunni Muslim tensions are escalating, factions of each group are multiplying, and fears of civil war are increasing. All the while President Bush is having another fundraiser, and seven more American kids are dead.