We’ve created more terrorists than existed prior to the “War on Terror,” even though we’ve killed quite a few of them (no real numbers on that either, by the way – I’ve always wondered when you see reports such as “the U.S. mlitary has reported 150 Iraqi insurgents killed in such-and-such an action” – how many of those were actual insurgents, and how many were just innocent people sitting down to lunch?).

If Bush has any positive legacy at all (doubtful), it’s that he’s taught us that military strength alone will never defeat terrorism, and in fact can have the opposite effect.

We don’t count their dead because we don’t want to face our own mistakes and evil. From all estimates, we’ve killed 1 to 3 times as many Iraqis in 6 years as Saddam did in 30 years, not to mentioned the estimated 4 million Iraqis displaced without and within Iraq.

We want to believe in our exceptionalism, our stature as a moral compass, so we shy from anything that could diminish our own view of ourselves. This keeps us from true greatness, and the past eight years have lead us down a hellish path. I think Obama brings both intellect and pragmatism to move America back to a leadership role in this world.

But we’ll barely own up to, much less actually honor our own fallen.

There are a lot of things we refuse to admit. Ignor(e)ance is one of our most basic problems.