Last week a woman came up to me at the corner I’ve been demonstrating at since before the war began and asked me how long I thought I’d be out there. Years, I said.

I’ve been demonstrating for years.

I had one of those first peace buttons. The Student Peace Union. SPU, I think we called ourselves.

Yesterday I turned on CNN and there was Sec. of Defense Robert Gates and General Petraeus talking about the loss of 14 GIs and I swear I felt as if I had woken from a coma. Hadn’t I heard this a dozen times before? Hadn’t the press asked the same lame questions and heard the same evasions so many times before? My God!

This is what the AP wrote:

Petraeus provided few details of the new offensive, but said he believes it will help the military make some progress in Iraq, where the war is in its fifth year and U.S. casualties have surpassed 3,500.

Have surpassed 3,500! 3,545 - that’s a nifty way of describing the death of 545 young men and women and the devastation it has brought to their friends and families.

A U.S. airstrike in Baquba went awry and killed 11 civilians. The McClathy papers have a report about an al-Mahdi leader who brags about his ruthless murders of Sunnis:

“Life is about getting even,” he said coldly, dressed in the all-black uniform of the Mahdi Army militia. “There is no innocent Sunni.”

Ah, the list of diabolically clever American leaders is too long for me to list right now. Maybe tomorrow.

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