WRETCHED RHETORIC

Every American should be repulsed and ashamed by the rhetoric President Bush uses to describe the unrelenting carnage he unleashed in Iraq 46 months ago.

During the recent congressional election, the president responded to a question by trumpeting "Absolutely we are winning in Iraq." With control of Congress lost and defeat in Iraq staring him in the face, he now says we are neither winning nor losing, and that progress has not happened as quickly as he hoped. What an insensitive understatement to describe the thousands of Iraqis killed monthly, the 1,800,000 who have fled the disintegration of their country to neighboring lands and the dozen or so American casualties daily including two or more killed.

Our military is broken, our treasure is squandered by the hundreds of billions to be paid by future generations, and he has the audacity to say it hasn't gone as well as he would have liked.

Shame on President Bush and every Congressman who votes to fund this criminal enterprise of failed conquest. The president and his war cabinet will eventually be relegated to the scrap heap of history filled with bloodthirsty leaders who launched senseless wars of choice. When this happens he will finally know the true meaning of one of his most despicable comments, "Bring it on."

Originally published on Chicago Tribune web blog, December 21, 2006