Number of Americans wounded in Iraq climbs higher

Statistics should affect vote\nAbby Schwimmer\nThe phone rings. You pick up the receiver, and the voice on the other end of the line "regrets to inform you" of what every military family fears: Your son or daughter, husband or wife has been critically injured in the war in Iraq. \nThis is the sad reality faced by the thousands of families of those serving overseas. Their loved ones will return home mere shells of their former selves, with amputated arms and legs, serious internal injuries and horrific memories that will haunt them for the rest of their lives.\nAnd what are these men and women fighting for? The war has not only failed to achieve its objectives, but it has exacerbated existing tensions so much that Baghdad is now on the brink of civil war. The numbers speak for themselves. This country needs a change in leadership, and the choices voters make this November will reflect that.\nAmerican honor first priority\nBrian Stewart\nOn the heels of reports that America has suffered its worst casualties in Iraq since November 2004, the question on the political table two years later seems to be whether the mission there is worth completing.\nToo many people think it isn't. The Democratic sheep have been set baa-ing about how we are "less safe" -- duh, we're fighting a war. And even Republicans have been too timid to speak the obvious truth: Those who invoke the cost of war -- in blood and treasure -- as reason to go back on the solemn promises made to commendable Iraqi allies wish to sell national honor for peace.\nGeorge Orwell memorably advised that "the quickest way of ending a war is to lose it." The more we use statistics to justify capitulation and the less we use first principles to justify victory, the less you will hear the United States billed as a mature superpower -- and deservedly so.