Sadly, a couple of milestones were met today ...

Sadly, a couple of milestones were reached today.

Of course, it is the fifth anniversary of the terrible attacks upon our soil in New York and Washington, DC ... and to commemorate that, we can do little more than to take our flags down to half mast and reflect ... both on the changes we have seen since that terrible day (and those lost on that day) and on the lives lost since that terrible day -- Iraqi, American, Afghan, British and many others -- as a result of the hatred fueled on that same terrible day.

Considering Americans lost -- which is unfortunately the only meaningful statistic that some see as meaningful, another milestone was reached. Whether you use the numbers I posted earlier or the numbers I've seen published this week (our Pentagon puts out its casualty numbers each Tuesday), we have now reached 2,991 dead and 20,846 wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq which means that we have now exceeded (sometime between a couple of Tuesdays in September) the number of persons killed on 9/11/2001. On that day (and not including the 19 hijackers) we lost 2,973 persons, 2,902 of whom were American citizens (at best count).

Of course the totals of casualties for all allied countries and those against whom they are fighting is much higher. The number being floated last Tuesday was 231 dead in Iraq alone among the "nations of the willing" (the coalition, not including the US). Of course, countless "enemy combatants" and civilians have died in both Iraq and Afghanistan and both countries have been completely "broken" to use a word my brother, Richard from Connecticut, has used to describe the way Colin Powell viewed the carnage in these countries to justify our continued presence ("if you broke it, you have to fix it!" was the Powell quote, I believe).

The question in many of our minds now is ... "Is that enough, Mr. Bush?" What numbers will satisfy you and your neocon handlers before they let you begin to draw down our forces in harm's way? Of course, the same questions must be asked of Tony Blair, the UK Prime Minister, and other leaders worldwide. 3,000? 4,000? 5,000?

We surely have topped 3,000 as of tomorrow's published figures from our Pentagon.

Is it enough?