- There are some hippies in Gettysburg who have pasted in their picture window overlooking the main E-W street a running total of deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. As of Monday evening that total stood at something like 5,000.
In one day at Antietam in 1862 the United States Army lost 2,600 men KIA. In three days at Gettysburg, it lost 3,155 KIA. In three years in Korea the United States lost 36,914.
To have conquered two territories roughly equal in area to our entire West Coast with the loss of only 5,000 killed in battle over a course of six and a half years is a minor miracle. To see those countries struggling to establish stable and just government – and apparently succeeding – is an absolute miracle.
- When the Iraq War began I argued that it was not only right, it was righteous. To mobilize our money and our blood in service to others and in our interest is righteous.
- If this is a war for oil, why did I just pay $50 to fill up my car today? If we’ve spent billions of dollars and sacrificed thousands of lives to place an army in the middle of the most oil-rich area on Earth – why isn’t gasoline cheaper than a 1955 hamburger?
- I remember in 2003 praying for the war to start on St. Patrick’s Day. I figured the news would call this “Gulf War II” or the “Iraq War” and neither had the ring of the “St. Patrick’s Day War.” Unfortunately the war was delayed until March 19, the “St. Joseph’s Day War” just doesn’t have any panache.
In hindsight the timing makes perfect sense. If one spends the 17th drinking, and the 18th combatting a hangover, you can’t go to war until the 19th. I’ll bet that’s an early lesson in West Point Strategy 101.
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