The editorial cartoon in the May 1 Bangor Daily News shows President Bush asking Republicans if he can get a drum roll until September while he tries vainly to pull a rabbit from the Iraq hat. The editorial next to it says that General Petraeus’ comments should prepare the public for what to expect – “the possibility of many more years, many more lives and hundreds of billions of dollars more. And that’s if things go well.”

If we can expect a situation that the American public has demonstrated clearly it doesn’t want, in last November’s elections and in numerous polls, why not cut our losses now? Surely that is the ethical choice. Wasting thousands more lives and billions more dollars just to give political cover to senators in the political middle such as Susan Collins is a shame.

Why wait until 2008 to withdraw U.S. troops when it is so clear the invasion of Iraq has been a costly failure? Just because we can’t bring ourselves to admit it?

Christina Diebold

Bangor