Our "wasted treasure"

McCain "stumbles out of the gate," perhaps unintentionally delivering one of the most candid and meaningful comments to come out of the "Straight Talk Express."

"Americans are very frustrated, and they have every right to be," McCain said. "We've wasted a lot of our most precious treasure, which is American lives."

Obama, as a Democrat, was raked over the coals for a similar remark:

“[The Iraq war] should have never been authorized, and should have never been waged, and on which we've now spent $400 billion, and have seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted.''

If McCain were a principled candidate (and he's not), and truly disapproved of Bush's handling of the war (he voted for it, before he...didn't show up to vote against it), he should have stuck by the remark. That goes for Obama, too--especially running on an ostensibly antiwar platform (minus his suggestion to increase defense spending post-withdrawal).

One simply cannot simultaneously advocate withdrawal on the grounds that the invasion was illegal, the "mission" ill-defined, and the occupation a bloody disaster and still defend the notion that such a debacle somehow warranted the loss of thousands of lives. If you believe the war is unjustified, a cause not worthy of death, then the sacrifices made in prolonging it are also tragically unjust.

Those demanding apologies from Obama and McCain lambast their remarks as callous and unsympathetic of the grieving families and friends of soldiers killed. But it's Gold Star family members, in the tradition of Cindy Sheehan, that make the most compelling arguments for calling it like it is--no matter how heart-renching that realization may be--if it will prevent the senseless loss of one more life :

Two painful questions remain for all of us. Are the lives of Americans being killed in Iraq wasted? Are they dying in vain? President Bush says those who criticize staying the course are not honoring the dead. That is twisted logic: honor the fallen by killing another 2,000 troops in a broken policy?

I choose to honor our fallen hero by remembering who he was in life, not how he died. A picture of a smiling Augie in Iraq, sunglasses turned upside down, shows his essence -- a joyous kid who could use any prop to make others feel the same way.

Though it hurts, I believe that his death -- and that of the other Americans who have died in Iraq -- was a waste. They were wasted in a belief that democracy would grow simply by removing a dictator -- a careless misunderstanding of what democracy requires. They were wasted by not sending enough troops to do the job needed in the resulting occupation -- a careless disregard for professional military counsel.

But their deaths will not be in vain if Americans stop hiding behind flag-draped hero masks and stop whispering their opposition to this war. Until then, the lives of other sons, daughters, husbands, wives, fathers and mothers may be wasted as well.

This is very painful to acknowledge, and I have to live with it. So does President Bush.

And so do we. It ends once America owns up to it.