American Deaths In Iraq Surpass Deaths On 9/11
Meet the new Democrat/anti-war talking point:
The latest deaths also brought the number of U.S. military members killed since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003 to at least 2,978 — five more than the number killed in the Sept. 11 attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
Critics of the war in Iraq will be quick to fashion this into an argument against the war. They’ll say that because more troops have died in Iraq than died on 9/11 the war wasn’t worth it, but I don’t think that’s a valid point.
It would be a valid point if our objective in Iraq were merely revenge, but it isn’t. Our objective in Iraq was to topple a totalitarian, terror-sponsoring regime to a) stop that regime’s sponsorship (tacit and otherwise) of international terrorism and b) impact other rogue, terror-sponsoring regimes in the region. Essentially, we’re not only fighting in Iraq because of 9/11 and other terror attacks originating from the middle east but also to prevent future attacks by changing the conditions in the middle east that cause terrorism in the first place.
Given that reality, the number of troops we’ve lost in Iraq in relation to the number of civilians we lost on 9/11 is hardly relevant. What is relevant is achieving our goals in the middle east, and at what cost. Right now I’d argue that the cost of our operations in the middle east are entirely sustainable. Our military is recruiting more than enough new troops, and even after about 3.75 years in Iraq the total bill in terms of tax dollars spent is still a fraction (about $318.5 billion as of August of this year) of what we spend in one year on entitlements like Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare and Social Security ($1.32 trillion in 2005).
Is the war in Iraq costing us a lot in terms of blood and treasure? Absolutely, but it’s worth it.












