Four more years of this, unless...

I've been reading more about General Petraeus's testimony yesterday at the Senate hearings.

Democratic senators and even some Republican senators expressed a lot of frustration over Petraeus's lack of straight answers regarding how we will know when it's time to leave, and "what the end is going to look like."

So the military has no answers. George W. Bush is in it for the long haul (until he can leave office and pass the whole mess on to his successor). And Republican presidential candidate John McCain envisions us staying in Iraq for 100 years.

And so it is likely that an ongoing, endless war in Iraq will be inevitable unless:

• We elect a Democrat to the White House;

and

• We get a larger Democratic majority in both houses of Congress.

As of this writing, 4028 American troops have died in Iraq so far, and 29,628 have been wounded. How many more of our brave young people will have to suffer and die for the Bush-McCain agenda?

The way Barack and Hillary's campaigns have been going at each other, I hope they don't cancel out each other's chances of beating McCain.

After all, four years of a McCain presidency will mean four more years of war, torture, and eroding civil liberties. It will mean four more years of corporatocracy, and an economy that benefits the rich and punishes the poor and the middle class. And it will mean many more American casualties in Iraq. In other words, it will be four more years of what we've been suffering under the Bush administration, and it will likely continue to steadily worsen as it has over the past seven years.

And it could embolden the right wing to take their agenda even farther. After all, McCain would probably want a second term, and would likely be willing to do whatever it takes to please the base.

That must not happen.

Meantime, I am nervous and scared.