No Miracles

Since this past weekend was unusual in that the Christian and Orthodox Easters coincided I had some glimmer of hope in the back of my mind that that many people all focused on redemption, sacrifice and love might somehow move the universe a little more towards sanity. Maybe not enough of them really have faith in what they profess...whatever, it didn't happen, even after the Pope kicked in.
It was a very deadly weekend:

Thousands of Iraqis streamed to the holy southern city of Najaf on Sunday in response to a call by fiery Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr for a big anti-American protest on Monday.

Sadr, who blames the U.S.-led invasion for Iraq's unrelenting violence, has urged Iraqis to protest on the fourth anniversary of the day American forces swept into central Baghdad.

"In order to end the occupation, you will go out and demonstrate," Sadr, who accuses U.S. forces of deliberately fomenting civil strife in Iraq, said in a statement.

Four American soldiers were killed in attacks south of Baghdad on Sunday while another two died from wounds suffered in operations north of the capital, the U.S. military said.

The toll makes it a deadly weekend for American troops after four soldiers were killed in an explosion near their vehicle in Diyala province north of Baghdad on Saturday.

If you are still counting that is 10 more American lives full of promise that are no more. The hate builds and builds and the Iraqi and American bodies pile higher and higher. The darkness of this tragedy touches another 10 families here in the U.S. and who knows how many more in Iraq. This debacle must end now...today is not soon enough, yesterday was too late. There might be some salvation if we could point to anything at all positive about this mess but we can't. There is nothing, absolutely nothing to temper the pain and horror of what Bush has done in our name.