According to Encarta Encyclopedia more than 600,000 soldiers died in the Civil War. This means more American soldiers were killed in the Civil War than in ALL other wars Americans fought in combined from the colonial period through the war in Iraq. Less than 4,000 American soldiers (antiwar.com) or .067% of the casualties from the Civil War have died in Iraq. I am not belittling the value of human life and as the son of two military veterans I can identify with their families, but the general public is too quick to jump on the media induced troop pullout bandwagon.
Now I’m not implying we haven’t screwed up things over there and should continue down this present path of chaos by any stretch of the imagination. However, merely bringing the troops home doesn’t solve anything except catering to the outcries of ill-informed, opinionated individuals who’ve no foundation for their antiwar ideals beyond the simplistic idioms of tree-hugging celebrities, weed-smoking artists, and politicians hungry for re-election.
Let’s just say we bring the troops home by next summer. What then? I’ve yet to hear of a precise, intellectually sound course of action besides the vague proposal to “mount a long overdue surge of diplomacy” (Barack Obama – who I support at this time). What does that mean? We’ll pull our troops out of Iraq, insurgents will overrun Iraqi security forces, assassinate American supported leaders, and we’ll what? show up with a bunch of senior citizens in suits w/ blue ties and briefcases asking them to “please stop” ?
Give me a break. Things are going horrendously in Iraq and the continued loss of civilian, Iraqi, and American lives is grievous indeed. But just yanking our soldiers outta there and wishing the Iraqi people “good luck” after we invaded their country is inexcusable and cowardly. Saddam Hussein was a tyrannical dictator who deserved his fate, and yeah we could’ve done a better job removing him from power and leaving a an economy/government intact. However, there are things the media won’t publish on the nightly news (because only bad news draws viewers — that’s another blog topic) and that is the welcoming open arms, smiles, and tears of joy Iraqi people meet our soldiers with.
We need to do something different, and I don’t know what that is. But we cannot abandon Iraq and leave innocents to the wiles of religious fanatics with machine guns who act in blind submission without reason.
