President Bush is set to announce his new plan for Iraq. Nearly four years after the American invasion of Iraq and we still don’t not have a plan on how to win there. We sent American troops to a foreign land to die with no clear plan for victory, or even a clear vision of what victory would be. This is criminal.

Bush, yet again, wants to “surge” more troops and money into Iraq. Apparently 300 billion dollars, 3000 American dead, and the unknown number of Iraqi dead isn’t enough for him. Just how many more troops, how much more money will it take to win in Iraq? Can the president or anyone in his administration answer this? The people sent a message to Bush in November. We want a change in Iraq. We do not want more lives and money dumped into a lost cause. We are tired of “stay the course” and “cut and run.” And if Bush and his cohorts are unwilling to listen to the people, then Congress must force them to listen.

While soldiers and civilians die on the streets of Baghdad and Americans flip through channels waiting for him to finish, Bush will call on America to send more soldiers to Iraq from his Imperial Oval Office. This is a mistake. Bush should address the General Assembly of the United Nations. He should admit that the American experiment in Iraq is a failure. He should admit that the United States didn’t fully understand the sectarian troubles there, that we didn’t know what it would take to pacify the people. And then he should beg for International help. On his knees, if necessary. Of course, President Bush is not going to do this.

Iraq is not secure, it does not have a functioning government, and it descends deeper and deeper into chaos everyday while we watch bewildered. We don’t know how to fix Iraq. We cannot fix Iraq by ourselves. It has become bigger than us, beyond us. And it’s bigger than politics. The president needs to admit this and work to stop the tragic wasting of life in Iraq.