Well one reason might be the following: From 1980 - 1988 Iran was engaged in a brutal war with Iraq and during those eight years approximately 600,000 Iranians were killed. (The total death toll was about 1 million for both sides). That translates to approximately 211 Iranians killed per day; each and every day of the war for 8 years.
Hence, it took approximately 10 days in the Iran-Iraq war to achieve the death toll that America has accumulated over 3 years in Iraq.
I am not going to say the trite qualification that inevitably is sincerely uttered each time this statistic is brought up (you know- "Every death is a tragedy blah blah blah"). I am not going to say it, because it is insulting and demeans every single member of the U.S. military who volunteered to be at the front line of danger for this country.
EVERY DEATH EVERYWHERE FOR ANY REASON IS A TRAGEDY. And get this: EVERYONE IS GOING TO DIE SOMETIME.
Now, having said that, some deaths have more meaning than other deaths; just as some lives do.
By making the absolute death count the ONLY issue of importance, the left has given our enemies a very powerful weapon. Neo-neocon appropriately notes:
It's interesting that, as our desire and our ability to minimize civilian casualties increases, the enemy has become more and more wedded to exactly the opposite tactic: the deliberate murder, with malice aforethought, of civilians. And this is contemplated and executed not as unavoidable "collateral damage" in the pursuit of other targets, but as a purposeful strategy to strike terror into the heart of what they perceive to be our softened and excessively tender Western sensibilities. They realize that that is a very good way to reach us, perhaps the most economical and parsimonious of all.
What a paradox: our own desire to wage war that is more humane, and our incredible advances in war technology, have resulted in an enemy strategy aimed to counterbalance our advantages with exactly the opposite modus operandi. And in the meantime, our military planners are criticized for conducting a war that has any casualties at all, one which features the usual errors attendant in any war.
This demand for an unreasonable standard--the near-perfect execution of an inherently imperfect endeavor, war--seems to me to be linked to a similar desire for perfection in our everyday lives. It's easier than ever (although never quite easy) to leave a marriage if it doesn't fulfill our every need. We expect perfect health and extreme longevity as our birthright. And we try to arrange it so that our children never know want or fear (or that horror of horrors, a blow to their sacred self-esteem). (Emphasis mine)
That is the strategic advantage that Ahmadinejad thinks he has. He is willing sacrifice as many Iranians as it takes (and in his estimation, it shouldn't take too many) to make Americans feel it isn't worth it to fight.
Cindy Sheehan and her ilk believe that the fight against tyranny isn't worth a single life. Most of the lunatic left have taken the position that America has nothing worth fighting for anyway.
Since Vietnam, the American public has been bamboozled into thinking that every war is a quagmire; every military option wrong and immoral (especially if a Republican in office); and that if something does not work out perfectly right away, then it should be abandoned.
The Democratic party leaders would willingly surrender in a flash if the polls went against them.
All this is not to say that we should stop our efforts to minimize deaths and casualties and wage war as humanely as possible. But if we cannot even muster the strength of will to accept that war is not fundamentally a humane undertaking and that lives will be lost no matter how careful we are; and that the unexpected will happen no matter how obsessively we plan--then there is no war anywhere that we could possibly win.
We should simply plan on welcoming our new overlords. Ms. Sheehan and the rest would be perfect in executing that function, having already allied themselves in spirit with them.
Ahmadinejad and the mullahs have some really good reasons to expect that a confrontation with the U.S. can only bring victory for Iran and humiliation for the U.S.
UPDATE: At least one Democratic leader is willing to stand up for this country--Joe Lieberman. I wonder how long he'll be welcome in his party?
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