Keep Your Eye on the Ball

With all the mud flying through the air this political season, it's sometimes hard to keep focus on what's actually going on and we may lose sight of important issues from time to time due to sheer media fatigue. But the War in Iraq is something that none of us should ever forget is going on.

I understand that it gets tiring to pick up the paper every morning only to see ANOTHER headline reporting casualties (both US and Iraqi) in Baghdad or Fallujah or Najaf, or wherever. But look, these are our young men and women over there, fighting - and dying - for our flag, and for a reason that Colin Powell now admits was based on tenuous assertions.

THIS has to be issue right now. The issue is that we were misled into this war in Iraq, and now our sons and daughters are paying the ultimate price for the deception. It has become a quagmire, and we are now in an unwinnable situation. As a result, the United States has been weakened on a global level just when we need to be at our strongest. N. Korea and Iran are working to develop nuclear weapons, there is genocide in Sudan, and democracy is receding in Russia. And we are not in the position (neither diplomatically nor militarily) to address any of these issues with any level of seriousness.

We need to keep this in the front of our minds, no matter how fatigued we feel. This is what's important.