Another perspective on U.S. casualty figures is that the number of our people killed in hostile action since major combat operations ended five months ago (approximately 80) is equivalent to the average toll every five days during the Vietnam War- week after week, for ten long years.

It's also equivalent to roughly 8 hours' worth of WWII casualties.

I'm fed up with the Democrats and their cynical attempts at sowing fear, uncertainty and doubt. When I look at all available sources of information, not just the left-wing propaganda outlets, it quickly becomes clear that things in Iraq are going very well, indeed.

"In the speech, Bush said the U.S.-led coalition is "helping to improve the daily lives of the Iraqi people," rebuilding schools and reopening hospitals. The claim is well made. For most Iraqis, everyday life is steadily improving, helped by the onset of cooler weather. But the missteps and violence of the summer, and the realization that the U.S. and its allies will be paying for Iraq in blood and treasure for years, have altered America's politics and foreign policy, making it likely that the 2004 election will be competitive and practically ensuring that if the U.S. wants to embark on another adventure like the pre-emptive war in Iraq, it will do so virtually alone."
-Michael Elliot, Time, 9/28/03

Sounds "fair and balanced" to me.

Thanks for the Vietnam analogy, Dave, I wonder what our count will be after "ten long years". Perhaps you Bush apologists can get an early start writing to the families of the dead and the maimed to explain why this "liberation" war is all worthwhile.

Perhaps shep, you should read this:

http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=235

And also this:

http://frontlinevoices.org/

I know, I know. All Republican/rightwing lies, right?

Tell you what. You get me the names and addresses, and I'll be happy to write to each and every one of those soldiers' families gets a thank-you note from me or another war supporter. From people who would never dishonor those familes' loss by claiming their children did something bad, or ignoble, by freeing those people.

Those who went--volunteers, every single one--did a great and noble thing for this country, and for the world. I'm very grateful to them.

So are the Iraqi and Afghan people.

By the way, Eliot knows little about history, including the history of pre-emptive wars, especially the history of pre-emptive wars engaged in by both our allies in this war and those who opposed us. Also very little about post-invasion occupations. That's obvious just from reading what he's said.

shep, you are being disengenuous. Or did you "accidentally" not see this (which Dean linked to, above):
"special report

So, What Went Wrong?
Ever since America's decisive military victory, Iraq has been nothing but trouble. TIME reports on the errors and bad guesses, before and after the war, that got the Bush Administration into this spot."

Yeah. That's really balanced. He's already tried and convicted Bush in his own head.

As for that moronic "Vietnam" meme the Idiotarians keep bringing up:

Only someone completely ignorant of history can find the two situations comparable. I've already gone down the list in another thread on this blog; would you like me to go over the major points again?

And if you want know how the families feel, read the stories that are already out. Read the letters and quotes of the men and women who have served, or are serving over there, including quotes from those who later died. These people believe in what they're doing, and while they aren't happy about a friend or relative getting killed, that's what happens when you join the military: you increase the odds that you will encounter pain, injury, or death.

I doubt that very many of the families of those who've fallen in combat in Iraq need any explanation of why their loved one's sacrifice was worthwhile, Shep. These people tend not to be smug, left-wing pseudointellectual smartasses, so they KNOW what their son or daughter died for.

And instead of archly wondering "what our own count will be after ten long years", how about- DOH!- reading the freaking graph.

If you know how, that is...

You know what that chart tells me ? Well, assuming there is some crisis in Iraq over the number of soldiers dying at the hands of Arab Guerillas, then there is obviously something else going on.

And that thing is obviously the crisis of accidents. Whether it is mishandling of ordinance, traffic accidents, or guys getting run over by their Humvee. You see, the number of non-hostile deaths is almost identical, at this point, to the number of deaths due to hositilities.

If the victims of terrorims is such a "Vietnam-esque Quagmire Crisis", then where is the hystrionics and outrage over the crisis of American soldiers dying in accidents in Iraq ? Well, obviously that just opens the question of what about the drunk driving crisis in the US, or even just the average weekly death toll on US highways that DON'T invovle alcohol.

No, there's no story there.

Dean, I've never denigrated the fine men and women who do what they're told, ultimately by people who don't have a clue what they face. In fact, it gets me a bit tweaked whenever I hear noncombatants minimize the importance of lost life just as I get down right mad when I see lives spent cavalierly (“bring ‘em on”) in an risky, high-stakes gamble.

Yes, I've read both viewpoints and can totally understand why war supporters tend to see the successes and journalists tend to cover what is news. Hint: unless it's the local Iraqi paper, the opening of a hospital isn’t (although I see plenty of that coverage too). And please don’t make me defend the mainstream media again.

Casey and Dave, if you’ve only heard the good stuff from soldiers and families, you’re selective reading and, therefore, uninformed. I’m sure that whether they’re proud or just confused and anguished over their losses has something to do with the beliefs about this war, or their service, that they had to begin with. For their sake, and the sake of the entire world I hope their sacrifice serves a noble cause. But, whether any of them, or you, are correct in the value of the sacrifice of lives (or just how big that sacrifice is), won’t be known for some time.

Shep,
Complaints from family of those who died don't matter. You can tell them that to my face from me.
Why? Because if I died there, my wife would probably be upset, as well. But it doesn't matter. Because I have risked my life there, and will do so again very soon, missing the entire holiday season with my family to continue this mission.

You obviously understand very little.

As I've already said, I am one of those servicemembers who have been and will soon be again in harm's way. And I don't feel anyone is "minimizing the importance of lost lives". If anyone is manipulating the willingness of volunteers to complete the mission, it's the faux "concern for our servicemembers" that people like you use to try and shore up your anti-Bush Administration attitudes.
Get this straight, and understand it now: We in the military are just like firefighters. You have firefighters to put out fires, and you have soldiers to impose our national will. We took this job knowing that we may never be put in danger (and sometimes people are lulled into a false sense of security for that), but the bulk of us are willing to risk our lives in our nation's interests. And our current leaders have proven they have the nation's interests at heart, so we follow willingly and gladly. We would follow nonetheless (see Bosnia and Kosovo for examples of that), but don't hijack us for your own purposes.
The President has proven his respect and concern for us time and time again, but he showed it again by that very statement of "Bring it on" that you so casually dismiss. It wasn't cavalier, it was a calculated statement that encouraged Islamic terrorists to focus the conflict in Iraq (where we have armed, experienced troops), rather than here in the US (where we have an open society that makes terrorism easier to perpetrate on our defenseless).
So it is clear that our leadership, with more and more reliable information than you, has more of a clue what we are facing than you do.

I'm sorry for my vehemence; I should probably find a more gentle way to explain myself. Unfortunately, I'm getting a little frustrated with fatuousness as exhibited by posts like yours.

You may impugn my motives if you wish, Nathan. But to suggest that people of good intent can’t disagree with this war policy makes me wonder if you’ve lost sight of what and who you’re fighting for. Perhaps it is only good people who think and believe as you do. So be it.

I’m glad you have full faith in your Commander-in-Chief. I pray it’s not put to the ultimate test. Godspeed.

Anyone in the mainstream media could have easily created this graph. Yet apparently, none of them did.

Anyone who has worked in any kind of organization--business or government--knows that one must look at trend lines over time to get an idea of what is really going on. Graphs are a helpful way of doing this: absent a graph, one can look at the basic time series of the data. Yet there's been little or no attempt to do this. Why?

Possibly the failure of the media to look at this information in its time dimension is a function of bias; however, I think it is more likely mainly due to the very narrow background that most of these people have.

David,

Its also good to keep in mind the inherent laziness of the media - they don't actually like to trouble themselves to get at the heart of an issue if, on the other hand, there is an easily acquired and very splashy story which just drops into their laps....look at the Laci Peterson case, for instance: much as I feel for the victims and wish to see justice done, its a complete zero of a story as far as wide-ranging ramifications...yet we've probably had nearly as much ink spilt over it as we had over Iraq. Why? 'Cause its easy and titilating....

In Iraq, we get two types of stories - stories from the newsies ensconced at the hotel bar for whom a couple mile drive to the scene of the latest anti-American demonstration is considered a rough day, and stories by guys and gals who want to go out into the countryside, live on miserable food, risk death and injury and get at the full truth...it stands to reason that those who like the bar rather than the brush are about a 10/1 ratio, thus our stories from Iraq are about 10/1 negative...

So, its really not so much media bias for the reporters in Iraq (though there is that), its more a co-efficient of human nature backed up here at home by highly selective editing from editors and producers who actually do have an anti-Administration bias.

Shep,

You go on about how the opening of a new hospital in Iraq is not big news - and you're right; but neither is each and every attack big news...big news would be, say, an attack by a couple-score Baathists upon an American military installation...that'd be news, because it'd be entirely out of the ordinary and if it did happen, it would be an indication of a worsening situation....

We don't want our men and women to die; but its a war and military people die in war. I am not being cold-hearted when I say things like that - its just the way it is, and has to be, if we want to win. Sometimes, I go to those websites which list the names and pictures of those recently killed...and I weep bitter tears of shame, frustration and sorrow...honestly, I really do; but when the next day comes, I damn my sorrows and steel my heart to even more sacrifice, knowing all along that for the remainder of my life I'll carry a burden of shame for my being alive and safe while others, nearly uniformly younger than me, have died in the service of my nation.

You seem to look at the dead and see "waste" - I see "hero" and demand blood retribution. I want our enemies to die, in great, big batches...fortunately, that is what is happening. I'll support this killing (and the cost in dying) as long as it takes for us to win.

"You seem to look at the dead and see "waste" - I see "hero" and demand blood retribution. I want our enemies to die, in great, big batches...fortunately, that is what is happening. I'll support this killing (and the cost in dying) as long as it takes for us to win. "

Mark, inasmuch as our soldiers are doing their duty and distinguishing themselves daily, I think they are all heroes, dead or alive. But, let's be honest. This war didn't happen to free oppressed Iraqis, it was about a judgment about what would serve US, Israeli and administration strategic interests (and I'm not saying that spreading liberty and regional prosperity weren't part of that equation). Since I don't believe the motives were pure, the policy was sold partly upon deception, and many innocent people will have died, the net effect will have to be very good to prevent lost lives from being "wasted". And your sentiment is exactly the one I would expect to hear from those who doubt we’ve killed their family member, friend, countryman, fellow Muslim, etc., for their own good.

Shep,
I'm probably arguing with all the other people I've encountered instead of what you actually said....that happens quite a bit in blogging, as I've seen.
However, you are making the exact same arguments I've seen over and over. Maybe you embody principled opposition, and I'm impugning your motives unfairly. Granted.
But here's what I see:
Liberals opposed the war on a number of grounds. As these grounds have been disproven one by one, the people opposing the war keep shifting the reasons.
We went into Iraq because, as President Bush promised, we would make no distinction between terrorists and those who harbor them. However, we cannot simultaneously invade every location that matches that point. So we prioritize, and when everything is added up, Afghanistan was the place to start, and Iraq was next.
Why?
Not just WMD (although that was the main argument for the UN, because despite lip service, the UN doesn't care about human rights), but Saddam harbored terrorists, had attempted to develop WMD, used WMD on his own citizens whom he considered extraneous/troublesome, encouraged terrorism by giving cash to families of suicide bombers, had demonstrated his willingness to invade his neighbors on miniscule pretexts, demonstrated unwillingness to cooperate with as well as outright obstruction to international bodies, tortured and oppressed his own people horribly. In short, he was doing evil and depraved things, and demonstrated his desire to expand the scope and scale of his evil and depravity.
All this has already been proven. The people who oppose the war must first answer these points before the opposition can be coherent. The Bush Administration saw a chance to make the world a slightly better place while simultaneously striking against a major supporter of terrorism and improving the climate in the Levant: it is no coincidence that the Palestinian Authority made concessions, appointed a Prime Minister separate from Arafat, and both sides took steps on the Roadmap for Peace almost immediately after Saddam fell. (the later failures of the roadmap do nothing to change the fact that the Levant situation is better than it was 12 months ago)
And the death rate of servicemembers in Iraq is extremely low by any count. Do you have any idea what the military death rate is in peacetime exercises? I suggest you check before trying to insist the death rate in Iraq is excessive.
And on top of avoiding the issues of "rape as punishment", $25,000 payments to families of suicide bombers, children's jails, feeding people into plastic shredders, zero cooperation on the disposal of WMD (because that is what resolution 1441 regarded, not the actual continued existence of WMD), the presence of known terrorists captured in Iraq, etc., you try to bring up your concern for servicemembers as a main argument against the war. That's BS, because we are all volunteers, and we believe in what we are doing. Not 100%, of course, but the vast and overwhelming majority. And while you can find some whining family members, the vast majority support the military and the realities of the situation without complaint, as well.

So. Oppose the war? Fine. Explain why. Email me if you it would take too much space to do it here.
But you have to start with why you think it was better for Saddam to remain right where he was doing evil and depraved things than the miniscule number of deaths related to his removal.
I don't think you can do that. I don't think anyone can do that.
You might as well start arguing that it wasn't worth it to remove Hitler. Some things are so obviously worth it, your continued opposition really calls into question what actions President Bush could take that you would approve of. Following that, one must wonder why your standard of acceptance is so incredibly high for President Bush. The apparent answers aren't pretty.

Nathan, I honor you and I thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I feel a lesser man that I am too old and have too many medical problems for the military to have me.

Shep, you're trying to be honorable.

But I must point out, Shep, that you were implied that those of us who support the war somehow haven't thought about those who die. That those of us who think this a noble and necessary cause are merely blind and stupid and don't think about the human cost.

Ultimately, you also implied that those who ordered our people into combat didn't agonize over their decision.

To be honest, Shep, you've impugned my motives, the motives of other thoughtful supporters of this war, and ultimately the President's motives as well as those of his staff.

To be blunt, you've made some unbelievably nasty insinuations, and then you've had the nerve to cry foul when an actual combat veteran has called you out and gotten mad at you.

I'm rather amazed that you aren't feeling rather embarassed, and aren't apologizing.

Dean, it is you who should be ashamed if you understand what “impugning motives” means. I’ve done no such thing and I defy you to show me otherwise. That goes for the “unbelievably nasty insinuations”. That’s just sanctimonious bullshit.

All I’ve said is that those who publicly support this war, and especially those who want to play down the human cost to try to justify it, should take another minute to think harder about the suffering they have yet to experience. At worst, that insinuates that you may be actively supporting a Bush administration war in an uncritical, knee-jerk, partisan fashion (and I haven’t seen anything on this entire blog to undermine that judgment). It’s pretty obvious you believe most of what you say about this administration and Democrats and that’s not a motive problem, it’s a perception problem.

Compare that with, “faux "concern for our servicemembers" that people like you use, and “don't hijack us for your own purposes”, and “with fatuousness as exhibited by posts like yours”.

Nathan, I think I’ve explained my skepticism about this war as well as I can. As far a what I think justifies aggression, self-defense (Afghanistan was close enough, Iraq is not), to beat back other aggressors (Kuwait) and to protect innocent life (Kosovo). The atrocities you site by Saddam’s regime might provide sufficient justification for this administration 1) if they hadn’t been in bed with that regime as the worst of these atrocities occurred, 2) they had made that their principle justification, and 3) the real rationale hadn’t been spelled out in black-and-white by the architects of this policy (see “New American Century”) years ago.

How on Earth was the Bush Administration in bed with Saddam's regime? And weren't humanitarian concerns cited by Bush as part of the reason for Operation Iraqi Freedom? What real rationale? President Bush was in favor of sanctions and containment until 9/11 spelled out the dangers of ignoring the growing threats against the US. I dont think any "years ago" writing had any influence, except maybe on loony conspiracy theorists.

Argh. Dean, I love reading your world, I've posted once or twice before, and the debates are usually pretty phenomenal, but some of these statements are enough to give me an aneurism out of sheer frustration.

Hi John. Sorry if anything I said boosted your blood pressure.

The current Bush administration is populated with retreads from the Reagan/Bush admins. If you look around, you can find pics of Donald Rumsfield shaking hands with Saddam and all manner of bidness deals with his regime (Google: Cheney Halliburton Iraq; you’ll get the idea) as well as directly supplying him courtesy of the US taxpayer. All this takes place while he was gassing (and torturing, and shooting, and raping, etc., etc.) his own people and blowing up US Navy ships. They looked the other way because he was also doing it to the Iranians, which they thought was a good thing.

You need to research the plans originally created by folks like William Kristol and Paul Wolfowitz (and many other prominent neoconservatives), under the rubric "New American Century". There's a c.1998 letter to Bill Clinton recommending just the invasion that was enabled by 9-11, Bush and the subsequent scare mongering about the "Iraq threat" and baseless associations between 9-11 and Saddam. Their rationale is interesting, and not without some merit, but it has little to do with human rights, was certainly not satisfied with sanctions or containment and is frighteningly suggestive of imperial ambitions.

Hmm, another myth. Well, we were trying to counterweight Iran, and Iraq seemed to be the best country to cultivate, literally the lesser of many evils, although evil itself. We've done many things over American history we cannot be proud of. But occasionally we have a leader with the guts to do something about rectifying our mistakes.
OF course, in the end, Saddam responding by stabbing us in back and attacking one of our allies. Nostradamus hasn't been in the White House yet as far as I know. But the myth that "we armed Saddam" has been debunked many times, so I'll repeat the data for you. In a twenty year period, we supplied $9 million dollars worth of military gear to the Iraqis, of which $200,000 consisted of actual weapons. Over twenty years I could provide that much weaponry. In that same time period, France supplied something like $9 billion and the USSR supplied $30 billion. We did not arm Iraq. We did sell them anthrax cultures, which they bought as medical equipment ostensibly to create vaccines for outbreaks among Iraqi herds. They misused what they bought, and then failed to account for it.
As I said, Bush had no interest in invading Iraq or really doing much else with foreign policy when he was first elected. 9/11 was as much an education and wake-up call for him as it was for the rest of the rational United States, and if he used a policy recommended by people politically similar to him to carry out the War on Terror, well it's to be expected.
There have been no baseless accusations from the administration linking Saddam and 9/11. They have linked, and very conclusively I might add, Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda and as I said before this makes him just as culpable.
There were (and are) many justifications for Operation:Iraqi Freedom, and so far I have not seen one good argument against it. Increased terrorism? Where? Quagmire? Don't be facetious, the evidence this is anything but a quagmire is all over, just look.

Once again, the fact that 9/11 kicked off the entire War on Terror belies any idea that the Bush Administration was running on a previously decided strategy. Unless, of course, you're one of the tinfoil hat brigade that believes the US attacked its own cities and citizens. In which case there's no real point in debate, is there?

Shep, let me quote you:

"Perhaps you Bush apologists can get an early start writing to the families of the dead and the maimed to explain why this 'liberation' war is all worthwhile."

A) "Bush apologists." As if our views are based on support of President Bush, rather than our view of the war and its necessity.

B) Insinuation: we haven't thought about those who would die in the conflict, and the human aftermath visited upon the families.

If that's not what you meant to imply, what did you mean to imply?

An honorable man, an actual combat veteran, has called you out on your nastiness, and you've accused him of not understanding what you meant to say. I say you either mis-spoke and need to correct yourself, or, he nailed you on your nastiness.

You tell me which it is.

shep writes " The atrocities you site by Saddam’s regime might provide sufficient justification for this administration 1) if they hadn’t been in bed with that regime as the worst of these atrocities occurred..."

Sorry, Dean, but you are being too kind to shep. The above is deliberate falsehood by shep. Falsehood and slander twice over. The first is that our trivia support of Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war can not be characterized as "in bed with" by any rational person. The second is the George W. Bush ( aka "this administration" ) had nothing to do with even that trivial amount of support.

As Nathan has shown and shep has only confirmed with this nonsense in reply, shep deserves contempt and nothing but.

Dean, I meant to imply EXACTLY what I said: knee-jerk partisanship leading to blind support of Bush is all it takes to gloss over the reasons behind and the bad effects of the war; no bad motives required.

Robin, "in bed with" could be considered and overstatement. But, if you really read what I wrote, you know that I was specific about what I meant by "this administration" and their involvement with Saddam as he committed they very crimes they now use to justify the war (this is Friday, right?). Nothing you've said undermines that point about their hypocrisy in the least bit.

Hey Shep:

Take a look at the facts and learn something!

I've had enough of you anti-war protestors pretending you give a damn about the world when all you do about issues is to sit on your hands and whine!

How dare you attack a man in the armed services! They are out there fighting for a cause, saving lives, repairing a broken society and helping the troubled.

- what have you done lately for your nation?

Shep thinks we went into this war to forward our strategic interests. He thinks this is not a pure motive.
I like the strategic interest involved in surviving, but let's let that go.
What would shep think is a pure motive?

I suppose he hates Roosevelt and Churchill for being in bed with Stalin during WW II. Right...?
Jump right in here, Shep. Start now....

And of course there is the usual lefty crap about the supporters of the war being deficient in compassion, not caring about soldiers' lives.
The left cares about them, as long as they are dead in sufficient numbers to discredit US policy.
Otherwise they're brutal and incompetent babykillers.

Shep might have had us fooled--probably not now that I think about it--had he not channeled the usual lies and outed himself.

Hey Blade,

You don't know me - let's keep it that way.

Richard, if you can read, you should know jsut what I consider pure(er) motives for war. Just as importantly, the President is required to lay them out honestly before taking the country to war, as Roosevelt and Churchill did.

Otherwise, your bombast is showing.

Wrong, Shep. It's my experience showing.
Pure motives must be strictly lacking in any strategic advantage for the US.
You think Roosevelt was honest about Lendlease?
We were going to get the hose back after the fire was out, remember?
You are cherry-picking the reasons we went to war, avoiding all the ones that inconvenience you.

OK, Richard, nothing pure in politics and war. Huge difference, though, between the understanding Americans had about the real reasons their leaders chose go to war against Hitler and the disconnect between their beliefs about Saddam's connections to terrorism against us and Bush's true rationale. And I believe that was by design. Trying to obscure the forest with some trees won't change that.

Shep, you pretend a number of things. Such as that the American people believed there was only one reason for going to war. And that reason, of course, was wrong.
In fact, the American people seemed to me to be pretty nuanced on the subject. Iraq and terror were connected, at least as far back as the Stark, which most of us remember.
The human rights issue is old news, not something we were just now allowed to know on account of the CNN couldn't cover it up any longer. Old news, but not irrelevant news.
Nobody with any sense thinks this is a war against al Qaeda alone.
This is a war, which most people know, against terror, which in its current incarnation seems to be a matter of Islamofascism. And while that has its strength in various states, it is not limited to the states.
Taking down the entire edifice has to start someplace.
All this the Americans, broadly speaking, know.
That the WMD haven't shown up yet doesn't change much, especially when you finally discover that we can read all of Kay's published report and don't have to depend on liberals pretending there's nothing there.

Hey Shep,

Richards right all the way mate. This is not a war against Al Qaeda alone, there are other terroist factions to deal with whether they are either country or non-country backed. Terror should not be allowed to dock at any harbour worldwide and if it is, those responsible should be acountable for their actions. Look at Syria at the momment.

As for the WMD, their exsistance in Iraq was not the reason for war - it was the fact that resoultion 1441 was not complied with, which brought about the concern of Iraq gaining these capabilities.

- As for "you don't know me" and "lets keep it that way", not to mention the way that you respond to other people here, it seems that you have a tendancy for verbal abuse - a form of violence... I thought you were against that sort of thing.

re: Shep's comments on casualties.

all discussions of military casualties are best made at the same 'level of abstraction' or else they devolve into sentimental nonsense.

to illustrate:

abstract fact #1: no nation in history has ever cared about the loss of its soldiers below the point where such loss impacts that nation's ability to project military power.

abstract fact #2: if my son were ever killed in a war, it would be the most expensive war in history.

both facts, while seemingly contradictory, or true -- where the discussion breaks down is when one shifts the 'level' from #1 to #2 -- as Shep did in his first post. When the argument takes this essentially sentimental turn, there's no frame of reference within which to continue the dicussion.

(oops)

both facts, while seemingly contradictory, ARE true..

Though I find Shep's arguments unconvincing, if not counter-productive, I am always pleased when someone apparently of the Left even attempts to debate outside the protective circles of consensus they so often isolate themselves in.

It is impossible to find an actual person willing to discuss let alone debate important issues where I live, who isn't conservative or libertarian. Yell, rant, jeer, sure, but they won't debate.

I wonder if it is the anonymity of the internet that brings them out, or is it due to an obsessive minority normally shunned in public that comes out to 'socialize'.

Still it is good to have ones positions challenged even if just to review them.

Jon, I appreciate your differentiating the facts into abstract and, I suppose, personal.
My brother, James G. Aubrey, 1LT USAF, was killed overseas in 1970.
It was a tragedy for our family and has blighted our lives ever since.
That's the personal fact.
The abstract fact is that there are a good many people who will benefit from the fact that we won the Cold War, in which he as so many others served, and many died, and never know he existed. If they find out he existed, they will have to dig into the socially-installed gratitude and compassion (not the personal kind) to sympathize.
The personal fact does not mean that it was not worth it to win the Cold War.
I notified the family of Joseph H. Marshall, Jr, 1LT, INF, KIA Feb 18, 1971, in Laos. They, too, were blighted. I kept up with them for some years, and know how they fared.
Yet, we won the Cold War. Communism is on the ash heap of history. Monstrous regimes are no more.
That some suffered unspeakably does not mean that nothing happened, or that it wasn't worth it, or that it shouldn't have happened. It doesn't mean that nobody benefits. In fact, people probably benefit in direct proportion to their distance from the pain, physically and emotionally, and intellectually.
In one sense, we fought in order that there be the maximum number of ignorant ingrates.
A fraternity brother, navigator on KC135 tankers in SEA, once remarked, not long ago, that it takes fourteen seconds at a party to spot the veterans, and who not to bother with.
There's us and there's everybody else and no reason to mix the two.

Richard --- good post! I'm sure all Americans appreciate the bravery and sacrifice of your family.

I hope that you will continue to bear the pain of your loss with the kind of dignity you expressed in the post.

Thanks, Jon. We're getting by. When my brother was killed, I was on orders to Viet Nam (I was an Infantry officer--like my father), and I took advantage of the one-per-family rule for small wars.
That meant I served the rest of my time in an Air Defense unit, a terrible place for a simple but honest grunt. Full of engineers. Try telling an engineer a joke. Uphill.
One of my jobs was running the roster for notification of next of kin. Man, was that a job.
You really don't want to be thinking of that before you go to bed.
I hope I made the point that the pain suffered by some does not negate the advantages of having prevailed. It doesn't for the Cold War, and it doesn't now.
"Tell it to the family" is a juvenile response when reason is not familiar to the speaker, or when facts are against him. It's been done.
I'm not sure all Americans ought to appreciate and so forth. To do that would require some familiarity with the pain. Why do I want that?
A friend of mine--we go back to jump school--has a friend whose son, a tanker, returned from the Gulf in the summer. My friend invited half a dozen veterans (only) to have a dinner with the kid and talk about the situation. It was a good idea to restrict it to veterans, as the conversation was only superficially in English. But it was even more important, as non-veterans simply don't understand. So why force them to?

Thanks Richard.

Shep,

"Richard, if you can read, you should know jsut what I consider pure(er) motives for war. Just as importantly, the President is required to lay them out honestly before taking the country to war, as Roosevelt and Churchill did."

What this statement, of yours, tells me is that you are NOT a student of history. There are adquate, historical papers, books & documetaries for you to review so I won't go into particulars other than to say you are full of BS.

Roosevelt & Churchill were playing their own game to the tune of over 500K dead military, not counting the civilian population or enemy. In "Infamy" and "Day of Deceit", the writers produce documentation of the trail of deceit perpetrated by Roosevelt and Churchill upon the very people they were sworn to protect. If ever there was a single person more deceitful than Roosevelt, it must be Clinton when he sent our military to Kosvo.

I spent 3 years in countries adjacent to Vietnam, prior to 1964, and there is absolutely no relevence to the Iraq War. I lost many, very close friends after the real hostilities began and I believe your attitude and statements are a slur against their patriotism.

To use your own words, "You don't know me - let's keep it that way."

Blade wrote:
“Richards right all the way mate. This is not a war against Al Qaeda alone, there are other terroist factions to deal with whether they are either country or non-country backed.”

Only half-way, mate. Islamo-fanaticism is bigger than Al Quaeda but, until this war, was about as unrelated to Iraq as it was to North Korea (and, unlike Iraq, North Korea really has the means to provide the fanatics with the tools to do us real harm – if they haven’t already). If you and Richard think this war was waged because of the immediate “war on terror” you’ve been bamboozled (as evidenced by the political propaganda phrase you’ve adopted). Google “New American Century”, “William Kristol” and “Richard Perle” and you’ll find the long-standing and highly speculative rationale for taking down Saddam. It is NOT because that regime was perceived to be a near-term or direct threat to America.

But I am glad that, since your great leader has said as much, at least the debate is no longer whether Saddam had connections to Al Quaeda.

…and I believe you started the “verbal abuse”. I guess you tough guys can dish it out…:

“Take a look at the facts and learn something! I've had enough of you anti-war protestors pretending you give a damn about the world when all you do about issues is to sit on your hands and whine! How dare you attack a man in the armed services! They are out there fighting for a cause, saving lives, repairing a broken society and helping the troubled. - what have you done lately for your nation?”

Colin Sword wrote:
“What this statement, of yours, tells me is that you are NOT a student of history. There are adquate, historical papers, books & documetaries for you to review so I won't go into particulars other than to say you are full of BS.”

To satisfy your stereotype: Advertising, Design and Psychology. So, as far as BS goes, tell me about Roosevelt and Churchill’s deception about the MAJOR reasons for American involvement in WWII. My liberal-arts tainted review of papers, books and documentaries suggests that they told the public that Hitler shouldn’t be allowed to conquer and occupy sovereign nations – much like Bush the 1st’s (valid) explanation for why we had to chase Saddam out of Kuwait.

...and Jon, I meant exactly to take the abstract to the sentimental. Woe on us if we forget they're people before they become casualties. Next thing you know, people start making insane, relativist arguments that everything's Ok because the body counts aren't as high as some other, more horrible, misadventure.