President Bush has been comparing Iraq to Vietnam, noting the dangers of a Saigon-style evacuation. "One unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens, whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 'reeducation camps' and 'killing fields.'" Yes, an Iraq retreat could well lead to a bloodbath in Iraq and in the Middle East, but this is not the main reason to see this through.

On August 6, 1945, an American B-52 called the Enola Gay [correction: the Gay was a B-29 bomber. Thanks reader for the heads up] dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. A few days later a second atom bomb was unloaded on Nagasaki. The total number of civilians dead exceeded 100,000. Japan mourns today on the fifty-second anniversary of HIroshima. In Japan, the atomic attacks are generally considered a moral outrage, and the defense minister had to resign recently for making the truthful statement that the bombs were necessary to end the war.

The deeper question remains: is the targeting of civilians justified?

Testifying at the preliminary hearing for officers charged in the Haditha case, where Iraqi civilians were killed, Marine Justin Laughner testified that he was ordered to destroy photos of the dead civilians wrapped in blankets.

Laughner said that Lt. Andrew Grayson told him to get rid of the photos so that they would not be included in a report being prepared for top-ranking officers and a Time magazine reporter. "It was wrong," Laughner said. "Somebody was asking for them, and we're not going to give them to them? It's not right."

What nice Marines we have! Someone is asking for the photos, and why not provide them? Never mind that Time could use the photos to embarass the U.S. military. Never mind that jihadists would distribute the photos in their recruitment materials. Blacken the reputation of the United States. Hand a propaganda victory to the enemy. But hey, Laughner, they did ask politely didn't they? Ask and you shall receive.

As it turns out, Laughner deleted the photos from his computer but they were still one his digital camera. So the world did see them, and they are now being used in the Haditha prosecution. My point is not that the photos should have been destroyed, but that they should have been carefully guarded and shown only to the proper authorities. If crimes were committed, there are court martials and other ways to handle the offenders.

To release the photos is to feed the propaganda machine of the cultural left, which has been recycling Abu Ghraib materials for years and couldn't wait to get its hands on something new like this. The Islamic radicals, too, need images to portray America as a savage beast. However embarassing it has been for the U.S. military, Haditha was a godsend for these folks.

In an Associated Press story about the carnage in Iraq from the weekend, you will find this passage in the fifteenth paragraph:

"At least 73 other Iraqis were killed or found dead nationwide, including 31 bullet-riddled bodies of men who were apparent victims of death squads usually believed to be run by Shiite militias."

That's in the 15th paragraph! After the story of how 14 more US troops were killed in Iraq over the weekend. After several other spectacular suicide bombings were explained. Then we get to this horrific body count. The problem is the AP is right. This has become so commonplace in Iraq, it is no longer top news at all. It gets buried in a story filled with other hideous violence.

And as I looked at the picture of a little Iraqi girl attached to the story with shrapnel all over her face, I thought to myself, if there is a God, may He have mercy on George W. Bush's soul. Bush opened up this Pandora's box and what has come out has been horrible beyond words. He did it with easy indifference and flippant negligence.

As you look at that girl and think about the 73 dead, and 31 bullet riddled bodies, and the 14 Americans dead, and the over 3,400 that came before them, and how there will be more of the same tomorrow and the day after, if you believe in a God, put in a prayer for George Bush's soul. He's going to need it.

The Young Turks

It's been four years since Bush announced that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended", however everyday in the news we still hear of violence in Iraq. It is OK for you to wonder what the daily struggle must be like in Baghdad. For that reason a group of Iraqi's have set up a video blog that documents the daily struggles of young Iraqi's. Below are the two latest webisodes of "Hometown Baghdad". (The second is a little graphic, so finish your sandwich.)

If you find these interesting by all means visit their website and check out the 20 other episodes they have online.

Hometownbaghdad.com

An ongoing documentary web series following the lives of a few Iraqi 20-somethings trying to survive in Baghdad. The brave Iraqi subjects and crew risked their lives every time they turned on a camera to make this series. They want to show the world what life is like when your hometown is a war-zone.

Last week, Harry Reid was widely criticized for saying that the Iraq war "is lost." On Power Line, I explained why I thought Reid's comment was both incorrect and politically misguided. Today, Reid backed off his claim, and, almost as though he were taking my advice, couched his criticisms in terms of a "failed policy" rather than a "lost war:"

The Senate majority leader drew criticism from Bush and others last week when he said the war in Iraq had been lost. He did not repeat the assertion in his prepared speech, saying that "The military mission has long since been accomplished. The failure has been political. It has been policy. It has been presidential."

There is an irony here; Reid is echoing the "mission accomplished" banner for which President Bush has long been abused. But news accounts haven't focused on this point, instead, they have emphasized Reid's claim that the President is in "denial" on Iraq:

Reid noted disapprovingly that in a speech last week, Bush repeatedly said there were signs of progress in Iraq in the wake of a troop increase he ordered last winter. "The White House transcript says the president made those remarks in the state of Michigan. I believe he made them in the state of denial," said Reid.

In fact, though, there are signs of progress in Iraq, both as measured statistically and as reported by many observers. It is Reid, not Bush, who doesn't want to address the evidence, but rather seeks to achieve his objective by bullying. There is an interesting parallel here to the Democrats' tactic on global warming. There, too, they refuse to engage the evidence offered by skeptics, and instead insist that the debate is over and anyone who disagrees with them is "in denial." This is, in general, not an approach that is followed by people who have strong arguments and evidence on their side. So it shouldn't be surprising that many people conclude that what Reid fears in Iraq is not failure but success, as suggested eloquently by Chip Bok:

Mo Rocca says he wants to know how many civilian deaths are required before the invasion of Iraq becomes a failure. The question is an unusual one because the success or failure of military operations traditionally has been judged by the outcome, not the number of casualties. Most people would say the Vietnam war was a failure for the U.S., and would have been had the death count been small, because we didn't achieve our objective. Few consider the Civil War or World War II a failure in spite of the enormous death tolls.

A more relevant question at this point might be: will Iraqi civilian casualties be higher or lower if the U.S. withdraws? I think they will be higher because the U.S. is a counterweight against the Shia and Sunni militias and death squads and the al Qaeda terrorists who are doing most of the killing at this point.

Another pertinent question along the same lines is whether, if the troop surge in Baghdad continues to be associated with fewer civilian casualties in that city, we should also increase troop levels in other parts of the country in the hope of replicating that result. Our domestic politics may not permit such a move, but if we're asking theoretical questions based on concern over civilian casualties, my question seems like a fair one.

Numbers can help bring perspective to war: Days of fighting, troops enlisted, troops lost, area gained, etc. These figures can help determine whether waging a war was worth it.

Take Iraqi civilian deaths. The lowest estimate of Iraqi civilian deaths since the invasion of Iraq is 60,000. (Civilian deaths - not including Iraqi or American troops.)