With the one year anniversary of Bush’s foray into Iraq and nationbuilding coming up, the San Francisco Chronicle devoted the entire editorial section of Sunday’s paper to photos of all the men and woman who have so far lost their lives in Iraq, up though Thursday, March 11th. I was both moved and sad as I pondered what these people might have accomplished if they had lived, who they left behind, what their dreams might have been. 560+ American lives lost plus 4000 or so wounded. And for what?
Faces Of The Fallen (click on the box at the right to see the Photo, Name, Age, Branch, Hometown, State and Date of Death of each person).
I agree with your sentiments but what do you wish to debate. Whether it was pointless? Whether it was worth it? I suspect that, in the words of Zhou Enlai, “it’s too early to tell…”
Yes we should, but I also suspect your newspaper did not go so far as to actually publish any photo of them…
I should have been more explicit. Yes, I feel this endeavor has been a gross waste of human life and potential, that it was illegal, that we were mislead by the Bush administration and that we should not be there. Regardless of all the other black marks against this administration, for miring us in Iraq alone, Bush should not be given another 4 years to do even more damage. It is not too early to tell. It was wrong from the start!
Has the loss of human life (Americans plus everyone else), the count of disabled and wounded been worth it?
Actually I agree with your stance against the War - but from issues of principle which are the same before the War and after.
Your post suggested to me that the issue was the casualties. Maybe that is the wrong inference to take but I’m just telling you what your post imparted. Would your be reflections be unchanged if the Iraqi casualties were the same as now but the US/Alliance casualties were, say, only 5% of what has actually been sufferred??
If yes then we are in accord. If no then surely the issue is simply finding out at what figure you would think it would be “worth it”? Personaly I think on the second question it is “too early to tell” regardless of your views of the morality of the whole enterprise.
IMO, the loss of even one American life was not worth it. Iraq was not the root of terrorism that Bush’s team has made it out to be and clearly, terrorism has not stopped. I’m not saying Saddam was a nice person, but there are many nasty country leaders in this world (such as the leader of North Korea) and we don’t do anything about them. The USA cannot be the world’s policeman. Perhaps one of the people whose lives were lost was destined to be the next Einstein or Hawkins? We will never know…
Maybe my turn for not making myself clear. OK the “assume 5% of actual” argument did not strike home. How about **zero **? Yes, assume the US/UK achieved what they did with no casualties. Not a single killed or wounded in an overwhelming example of the use of force and a massive swamping security operation since?
US fatalities have averaged over 1 per day since the war began a year ago, with the exception of February, which was .79
US wounded has averaged over 5 per day in the same period, with a peak of over 11 per day for the months of November and October, five months after the end of major conflict on May 1st.
What you are witnessing is shameless political opportunism. People who oppose the war in Iraq don’t want to try to convince other Americans to care about what the Iraqis went through–and we all know that life under Saddam Hussein was a complete and utter paradise, after all. Instead, they try to push the one button that they think will get immediate response. Actually changing mindsets so that this kind of stuff doesn’t happen again is irrelevant. All that matters is scoring points on this one thing.
Ah **Dogface ** we meet yet again. What is it with you? You cruise about dropping cheap shots and never engage with the arguments raised by those who try and debate with you.
My issue with the OP was simply that I found it offensive that the issue of American casualties appeared to be the rationale for opposing the War. Not Iraqi casualties , not even Alliance casualties. I was trying to establish if indeed that was the case before perhaps causing offense to the OP poster by assuming too much.
What exactly is your problem with that? It is a moral issue here not a political. Nobody was attempting to score any points - except perhaps you. Some people are morally opposed to war, nothing to do with politics. Others believe there is a difference between moral and immoral wars, and will support the former. Yet others believe in real politick, the rule of force, and adopt a moral relativism, where it can be judged on the basis of self interest and pay-off.
I only wanted to find out which camp the OP fell into. I am still no clearer.
BULLCRAP! Caring? How about first caring about all the hungry, poor and homeless people right now in the USA? How about the 40 million people here who don’t have healthcare? Or if you don’t think that such people suffer enough, there are lots of other peoples throughout the world that are suffering under dictators and tyrants (see the thread on “Worst Dictators” here for details). If we drafted everyone in the USA into the military, there wouldn’t be enough people to get rid of all the leaders who oppress their people, let alone the money to do so.
notquitekarpov - I didn’t mean to imply that Americans are special or of more concern than anyone else. However, outside of the Iraqi’s we have lost and had injured the most people. Any loss of life by anyone for such a phantasmagoric endeavor is just not acceptable, particularly when the support of the UN was lacking and we have not achieved what was stated was one of the main goals - by getting rid of Saddam, we would stop or put a serious dent in world terrorism.
Moderator’s Note:iamme99, please review our guidelines on posting copyrighted material. I have edited your original post to remove the actual San Francisco Chronicle editorial; anyone wanting to read it can still click on the link.