Unlike others who object to the war in Iraq, I don't not support unilateral withdrawal. While I think it was a terrific mistake to start the war in the first place, it would be an even greater mistake to abandon the Iraqis before they are able to stand on their own. The resulting vacuum would have a disasterous cascading effect throughout all of the Middle East. Unfortunately, this means more American soldiers will die before our forces are able to come home.

A silver lining...since the election, it does appear that the daily rate of American casualties is slackening. One hopes and prays that this trend will continue.

By the way, in addition to the fatalities over 11,300 American soldiers have been wounded. Of those, nearly 6,000 were injured so badly that they were unable to return to duty.