There was a story on BBC News yesterday about a fishing village down the Tigris River from Baghad. Before the war, it was an ordinary village-now it is more than ordinary. It is a morgue for the bodies that are dumped into the river, and flow down the Tigris-sometimes headless, sometimes undentifiable. Many have been blindfolded-before they were shot or killed in other inhuman ways.

The people of this poor village do what they can to identiy the bodies. They take pictures for the relatives of those missing fathers, or mothers, or kids...they bury the bodies that are unidentifiable.

The people of this village did not ask for this burden-they did not demand this war. Neither did many of us. And a lot of United States citizens who believe we were in Iraq to fight terrorism and birth a democracy now oppose the war.

According to some surveys, as many as 75% of Americans think the war is not going well. As an article in today's NYTimes that recounts the Democrat's decision to pull a bill with a timetable they knew would go down rather than allow Republican alternatives has fascinating data from the latest New York Times/CBS News poll: " 6 in 10 Americans say Congress should allow financing for the war in Iraq, but only on the condition that the United States sets a timetable for the withdrawal of troops. Still, 28 percent say Congress should allow all financing for the war without conditions. Just 8 percent of those polled said Congress should block all money for the war."

Yet Republicans blindly, or cynically, stick by a delusional President-and Democrats can't seem to come up with a plan that moderate Republicans will affirm. No wonder George Bush thinks he can flout the desires of the American majority. Thousands of men and women die in Iraq each month, and still it all seems to come down to a chilly senatorial political calculus.

Lord have mercy on us. More so, on the suffering families of Iraq, who bury the unknown dead-and dream of more peaceful times under a brutal dictator.