"We must honor them by completing the mission for which they gave their lives; by defeating the terrorists," said the president, speaking of the troops who have lost their lives in Iraq, some 1,650 of them so far. Speeches like his do much to kick-start sagging stateside support for the war, lending cheap stability to military families who are probably losing their minds. Never does the president speak of a way to get out of Iraq.

As far as defeating terrorists goes, if that's the stick we are to use in measuring the success of Bush's chosen war, it has become apparent that we are losing. Just do the math. As a result of directionless duty in Iraq, U.S. Army recruiting numbers are down. Due to our lingering doldrums there, combined with audacious stories of detainee treatment in military prisons, terrorist recruiting has soared.

There is a rumor that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaida point man in Iraq, has been wounded. Some say he has left the country altogether, finding shelter in Iran. An audiotape has recently surfaced in which al-Zarqawi makes the claim that he is just fine, that he has not left the Sunni Triangle, and that he is looking forward to continuing the fight on behalf of Osama bin Laden.

Let me be clear on this: I hope Zarqawi dies and goes to Hell as soon as possible. It would be a point of national pride if our guys were to nail him, but it would be just as satisfying if his own people saw him as a wounded lion and took him out themselves. Some further clarity: Either way, it won't make a bit of difference if this happens, any more than the capture of Saddam Hussein improved our situation in Iraq.

For starters, another terrorist will step up and take his place. That's the horror of al-Qaida. One can't help but believe that, had the Bush administration chosen a wiser path to war by staying focused on Afghanistan, we'd be a lot further ahead than we are now. Invading and occupying Iraq was a stupid diversion, siphoning away too much money and manpower.

The reasons given for the war turned out to be false, and conservative revisionists have done nothing to reverse this blunder with their phony altruism. Who could have failed to see all of this coming?

How could anyone have expected the Bush administration to run a war? Who in the White House has ever known anything except how to run an oil company? Dick Cheney, CEO, Halliburton. Donald Rumsfeld, CEO, Bechtol. Condi Rice, board member, Exxon. The only one with even a whiff of expertise was Colin Powell, and he had plenty, but he was largely ignored until he could be prudently put out to pasture.

What's worse is that the men most responsible for getting today's youth blown to pieces in Iraq had the chance to serve their countries in wartime, and they all found ways to duck service. We all know about Bush and his time in the Texas Air National Guard's champagne unit. Cheney has repeatedly stated that he had "other obligations" in the '60s.

As for Rummy, he spent three years as an aviator in the Navy, in the fog and fury of the late 1950's, after he graduated from Princeton. As with Cheney, his disdain for the military (rivaling that of, puportedly, Bill Clinton) actually shows up now and then, as it did in January 2003 - before the invasion of Iraq - when he emphatically denied the need for the modern Army to reinstate the draft.

Draftees in Vietnam, he said, "added no value, no advantage, really, to the United States armed services over any sustained period of time, because the churning that took place, it took enormous amount of effort in terms of training, and then they were gone."

They were gone, all right; roughly forty percent of those killed in Vietnam were draftees. And today's forces consist of more than a few men and women who have been denied the right to return home at the end of their time of enlistment - back door draftees.

Try to get any Republican to talk about that, and see how quickly stone walls get built in your face. Rumsfeld was forced to backpedal, as a matter of course, from his comments. In doing so, he appeared about as genuine as any other neo-con on the planet.

As Bush slowly morphs into a lame duck, it will mean more to this country than watching him flailing in vain at such pet projects as privatization of Social Security. It will mean another two years, or more, of knowing that young Americans are dying in Iraq. It will mean that our promises to the Afghan people will not be kept. It means that Osama bin Laden will kill more people.

If this seems like a bleak picture, please understand that I'm just painting by numbers. During the time it took you to read this article, another half a million tax dollars (give or take a few hundred thousand, depending on your speed) went down the drain. Maybe that means more to you than the body count... I feel sorry for you if it does.