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Not an anniversary one would want to celebrate

It's the fourth annivesary of the invasion of Iraq. Even George Bush isn't all that bullish about how things are going in Iraq, as Reuters reports:

"Striking a subdued tone on the fourth anniversary of the Iraq war, President George W. Bush pleaded for patience on Monday and warned skeptical Americans of dire consequences of a swift troop withdrawal.

Bush defended his Iraq policy in the face of new polls showing Americans increasingly oppose the war and Iraqis with little or no confidence in U.S. forces seemingly unable to halt sectarian bloodshed bordering on civil war.

With his approval ratings near the low point of his presidency, Bush made a brief televised appearance at the White House, appealing for more time for his plan to send in nearly 30,000 additional troops, mostly to stabilize Baghdad.

He acknowledged, however, that "prevailing in Iraq is not going to be easy."

Reuters also reports on a most interesting poll:

"Only 18 percent of Iraqis have confidence in U.S.-led forces and most think the presence of foreign forces is making security worse, but despite that only about a third want them to leave now, a poll showed on Monday.

The poll of more than 2,000 people, commissioned by the BBC, ABC News, ARD and USA Today, indicated Iraqis have become less optimistic about the future compared to a similar survey in 2005 when respondents were generally hopeful, the BBC said.

Asked whether their lives were overall better or worse than before the invasion, 43 percent said better, 36 percent worse and the rest about the same. Expectations for how things will be in a year were much lower than in 2005, with only 35 percent expecting improvement compared to 64 percent in a 2005 survey."

The human side of a War which has caused such devastation on so many levels, is reflected in this piece on AlterNet:

"Spc. Jamaal Addison's mother describes him as an angel. He died on the fourth day of the Iraq war at the age of 22. "He was a hero," she said. "But he was a hero long before he ever got killed in this war."

Her words could also speak for the thousands of others killed in the invasion and occupation of Iraq that began four years ago today. Jamaal's story is one of many captured by a new, on-line video project called Iraq Veterans Memorial -- the latest from director Robert Greenwald and the folks at Brave New Films. [WATCH]

"While making Iraq for Sale, we were inspired and moved by the soldiers we interviewed. They were young, very smart and extremely patriotic. When we realized the fourth anniversary of the war was approaching we wanted to do something to honor people like them who were not lucky enough to return home," said Tracy Fleischman of Brave New Films.

"We were inspired by the Vietnam Memorial and the AIDS quilt -- which both bring tremendous loss of life to a human scale. We decided to use our medium -- film -- to create something similar. It was also important to us that politics not be a part of this project; we simply wanted to honor these young men and women and create something people with varying opinions could come together around."

The videos provide a human face, not just of those who have been killed, but of the people they left behind -- brothers and sisters, parents, children, friends, lovers, cousins, comrades. The men and women who were killed were more than service members -- in the words of those who loved them -- they were leaders, ambassadors, peacemakers, superheroes, poets, artists, athletes, dreamers, and jokers."

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