Sacrifice, Updated
Doesn't it seem like just yesterday we were noting that 2,000 troops had been killed in Iraq? It wasn't yesterday---but almost. Click here to see the updated body count. The rate of KIA's continues to increase.
The White House and Pentagon have gone to great lengths to make this war appear sacrifice-free. But they can't hide the body count, nor the thousands of troops with horrific permanent injuries who are becoming increasingly visible here in the U.S.
I continue to read variations of "we must honor the sacrifice of those who have already died and stay the course." One of the slams against Cindy Sheehan over the summer was that her son "knew what he was getting into" and that she shouldn't speak for him. Now, to support their own hypocritical and deceptively appealing line of reasoning, some from the honor-the-sacrifice-by-staying-the-course crowd themselves presume to know the wishes of those who have died.
There may indeed be good reasons for "staying the course." Invoking the presumed wishes of dead troops to justify more losses is not one of them.
The White House and Pentagon have gone to great lengths to make this war appear sacrifice-free. But they can't hide the body count, nor the thousands of troops with horrific permanent injuries who are becoming increasingly visible here in the U.S.
I continue to read variations of "we must honor the sacrifice of those who have already died and stay the course." One of the slams against Cindy Sheehan over the summer was that her son "knew what he was getting into" and that she shouldn't speak for him. Now, to support their own hypocritical and deceptively appealing line of reasoning, some from the honor-the-sacrifice-by-staying-the-course crowd themselves presume to know the wishes of those who have died.
There may indeed be good reasons for "staying the course." Invoking the presumed wishes of dead troops to justify more losses is not one of them.
posted by The Cunning Realist at Monday, November 07, 2005
21 Comments:
President Bush is a business man, maybe he can explain this to me: When a stock is tanking, must you honor the money you have lost so far by buying more of the said stock?
Ah, but Bush is a failed businessman which nullifies the question.
Don't forget the 20,000+ Iraqi civilian casualties.
You're asking the right questions. Too bad no one in the Bush administration will answer.
Looks like everybody forgot Poland.
US UK Other* Total
2056 97 103 2256
But now I forgot: The 'coalition of the willing' has been 'scrapped' in January...
The stock analogy is very good; so is the failed businessman comment.
What's up with Cheney still fighting to allow the CIA to torture people anywhere in the world?
When did these guys ever make sense and use good reason. Their ideas are DOA to sensible people because they trump up their data to get their way and most of the time their arguments end up way out in left field. You question their arguments, and they club you with their bat.
If George Bush & Dick Cheney were just two guys spouting their opinions, would anyone pay them any attention for more than two seconds? It's kind of like when athletes or movie stars come out with political comments- we pay attention because of who they are, not because of the validity of their arguments.
So let's not play their game: let's just meet their arguments head on, and ignore the clubs they may be wielding.
277fia, what an idiotic post. Even our incompetent administration knows that having Israeli troops fighting in Iraq would have been a PR disaster with negative ramifications throughout the middle east. Not that the war isn't a total catastrophe, but having Israeli troops as part of the "coalition" is about the stupidest thing I've heard.
No one forgot Poland, we just remember Vietnam.
Heard one looney say this was all the result of Reagan's withdrawal from Lebanon and we have to bring it all to an end. End of the world I presume. But Lebanon is a democracy these days, and they did it on their own (more or less). We don't give them enough credit to solve their own problems.
The Israelis already did fight, beating the Arabs in 1967 and 1973. So the Arabs have taken the war to the rest of the civilized world and successive U.S. administrations got suckered into it. Welcome to the new millenium...
As our men and women die in Iraq, should our government be treating Judy Miller's Ahmad Chalabi as a dignitary?
'Chalabi deserves a subpoena, not photo-ops with administration bigwigs.'
'Don’t Be Surprised If “The Chalabi Motorcade Speeds Up When They Pass the Department of Justice”'
'While the Department of Justice is actively investigating this man for wrongdoing that could have endangered American troops and American lives, the Department of State and the Department of the Treasury are hosting him like some sort of dignitary. So don’t be surprised if you watch the Chalabi motorcade speed up when they pass the Department of Justice.'
Anyone who uses the phrase "knew what he was getting into" obviously hasn't been in the military. We spoon feed our children unrealistic doses of 'war' and only those who've been there know what it's really all about and the gungho attitude is quickly forgotten in the realism of battle. War is more than hell, it's the indicator of just how uncivilized man really still is...
@ porchwise:
"Anyone who uses the phrase "knew what he was getting into" obviously hasn't been in the military. "
Oh, yeah?
The US government had "no comprehensive policy or regulatory guidelines” in place for staffing the management of postwar Iraq, according to the top government watchdog overseeing the country’s reconstruction.
Italian secret services warned the United States in January 2003 that a dossier about a purported Iraq-Niger uranium deal were fake, an Italian lawmaker said Thursday after a briefing by an Italian intelligence chief.
One month before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, three State Department bureau chiefs warned of "serious planning gaps for post-conflict public security and humanitarian assistance" in a secret memorandum prepared for a superior.
"State Department Warned Pentagon Was Unprepared For Insurgency.
CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight (8/18, Pilgrim) reported that there are new assertions that the Bush Administration "failed to prepare for the post-war Iraq. Three top State Department officials say they warned US military planners about serious planning gaps, saying the Pentagon was totally unprepared for an insurgency." CNN (Koppel) added that a memo written by those State Department officials "was just declassified today." "
And so on....
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