Four years after the U.S. invaded Iraq, there is no end in sight. After the United States had been in World War II for four years— well, by then that war was over, and the world was on the road back to peace and stability. No such prospect is in store for Iraq. Whenever we leave, now or in the future, the country will be poorer, more repressed and more dangerous than when we arrived.

Politicians aren’t allowed to say that lives are being wasted in this war, but I’ll say it. They have to say that people are making sacrifices, and I’ll agree with that. But that implies that the sacrifice is worth something, and I don’t think I can make that leap. Thousands of Americans and many more thousands of Iraqis have died for nothing more noble than the oil that’s under the sand, and the money that lines the pockets of rich businessmen.

Will we stay in Iraq another four years, or ten, simply because we don’t have the will to get out, even though we’ve already “lost” the war? Will we sacrifice more and more lives for a hopeless cause that we can’t even name? We will probably be there for another two years because the Congress doesn’t have the courage to oppose this president. What happens after that is up to the American voters more than the politicians and military leaders that are defining the present circumstance.