Wednesday, February 14, 2007

It's not about our sons and daughters

In World War II, about 300,000-400,000 Americans died.

In Vietnam, about 50,000-60,000 Americans died.

In Iraq II, about 3,000 or so Americans have died, so far.

(the numbers of non-Americans who died in all three wars is a fascinating story, but one for another time)

More than ever before, this is not about our boys and girls in uniform. This time around, it is not about the blood. For a moment at least, please check that baggage at the door.

If you have a close friend or loved one who died in Iraq, then common decency would exclude you from this requirement. But for the rest of us...

We need to stop being distracted by the blood, and we need to think about the money.

What are we getting for the money we are spending? Are we getting a good price for it? Do we have that money to spend?

Whatever you think about the war, strip out the blood, and think of the money. Is your opinion still the same?

3 comments:

Dave J. said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dave J. said...

The most interesting "blood" related statistic, is also the least announced. As of 6 months ago, the Red Cross estimates were that 45,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed by getting caught in the crossfire. It is probably beyond 60K by now.

Monetarily, someone is profiting from the war, big time. We live in a capitalist society where everything we do is based on making money, and sustaining our ability to make money.

Or did we just go over there as overzealous crusaders?

*Sorry on the double post, HTML error I needed to clean up ^^

Anonymous said...

The opinion is still the same. You take out the lives lost, it's hardly reasonable to leave the rest of the human rights justifications in the equation. It's not worth it in money or blood.

For our money we don't get safety, we don't get new friends and allies, we don't even improve our mid-east oil dependency.