Having lost all positive reasons for the Iraq War, the Bush administration and its allies have fallen back on the last argument of a failing policy: We can’t afford to lose in Iraq. But as the stories about U.S. troops executing innocent Iraqi children emerge other questions come to mind: What if we have already failed? What if our continued presence only makes the situation worse not better?

According to recent reports, what’s happening in Iraq is worse than a civil war; it’s sectarian cleansing. And not only are American troops training the soldiers who are executing innocent civilians, but they are actually participating. They were given an impossible mission and this is the result.

And for what? The Iraqi Parliament can’t decide who should run the Defense or Interior ministries but they want to spend $50 million to buy themselves armored cars.

Bush claims the only mistakes he can think of were rhetorical, but this whole war was a mistake. It’s time to stop asking our young men and women to continue to die for a mistake.