Mike Honda: “the Nation brought in the new year by marking a somber milestone: the 3,000th fallen American combatant in Iraq. In…”

“the Nation brought in the new year by marking a somber milestone: the 3,000th fallen American combatant in Iraq. In response, the President proposes to send even more of a failed and dangerous policy. How much more heartbreak must American families suffer before the President comes to see what the rest of the Nation has long known: His Iraq policy is an utter failure, one that makes our country less and less secure with each passing day, all at the expense of the flower of our youth. How long before the President realizes that each fallen soldier, sailor, aviator, and marine is a valuable, cherished human being and not just a checkmark on a deployment order? How long will President Bush continue to ignore the demands of American voters who have clearly demanded a new direction? Mr. President, I have asked before and I will ask again now: Why? These policies of escalation have been tried in the past in Iraq. The results speak for themselves: 3,000 brave men and women return home in body bags, their families and friends left with nothing but memories; over 22,000 more returning home injured, their lives never the same. America's credibility around the world and its domestic security have been dangerously eroded. We have plunged Iraq into a civil war, further destabilizing an already precarious region. All this while, at home the civil rights of American citizens are slowly being degraded, often without congressional oversight.”