Another Turning Point

So Bush is declaring another turning point in Iraq. Now, I'm no math whiz, but I did ok in geometry. I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that these all are right turns. Which means we're forming a nice square, which may as well be a circle. We've become an obsessive-compulsive dog, turning in squares before calling it quits and going to sleep.

There are still tough days ahead and more sacrifices to be made, he says. But only by the same people who have been asked to make the sacrifices over the past three years. Not me. Probably not you. Nope--only the military and their families. People like my sister and thousands of other military families who have to watch as spouses, sons, daughters, fathers, mothers go off to Iraq, not knowing if they're coming home again. And once they are home, not knowing for how long.

Of course this latest turning point does not mean that we're declaring victory. After all we did that three years ago. You may have missed it--t'was just a small affair. Probably didn't even make the evening news. I mean, we wouldn't have wanted to go all out since we still had troops fighting and flag-draped caskets being loaded on transports. No one could be that tone deaf. Right? Right?

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I'm sure I've repeated myself a lot here, but this time it will be intentional. A couple of modest suggestions (originally posted 3/27/06):

1) Eliminate the federal income tax for all active-duty military personnel. After all, we pay them with tax money and ask them to put their lives on the line every day. This should NOT apply to any member of Congress, the federal judiciary or the administration. Especially not members of Congress, since they already have a lovely three day work week.

2) Offer the ability to assign GI Bill benefits to a family member after a pre-determined number of years of service or immediately, in the case of death or catastrophic injury.