4,000

The ultimate price for the wrong war in the wrong place for the wrong reasons has now been paid by 4,000 brave men and women of the United States armed forces. Neconservative hubris and a worldview belonging more to the 18th century than the 21st continue to exact a toll in blood and treasure that pleads for the architects of this disaster to be called to account for their actions.

History will judge this presidency as the most hapless, the most morally bankrupt in our nation's history. But that judgment hardly seems sufficient to atone for the misery inflicted on tens of thousands  of familes and the hundreds of billions of dollars criminally squandered on the necon dream of American Empire.

Was Hussein a bad actor? Certainly. But Al-Qaida was drawn to Iraq by the American military presence. We left the job unfinished in Afghanistan to prosecute a war in Iraq based on premises known to be false by its instigators.

4,000.

Pleasant dreams, Mr. Bush.