As I am writing this the current number of servicemen and women killed in Iraq is at 3,632 or approximately 69 deaths per month.  That may seem like a lot of death; but consider this, on September 11, 2001 in a matter of three hours we lost roughly 83% of the total of our brave men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice after 53 months of combating an enemy that prefers to hide among a civilian population instead of fight. 

Yes, I think that this time around we are getting off cheap.  It cost us just over 3,000 lives on September 11^th, just fewer than 20 lives when they blew a hole in the side of the U.S.S. Cole, I don’t remember how many died in the bombings of two embassies in Africa.  When I compare the human costs in Iraq to the human costs in previous wars, or even some of the individual battles in World War II, I cannot help but come to the conclusion that our freedom and way of life is more than worth it.  Just go back to a time when the tools of death and destruction were very limited in their efficient infliction of damage, the Revolutionary War. 

Neither General Washington nor General Cornwallis or any of the other battlefield commanders had the means to employ the types of weapons we see in Iraq on the battlefields of colonial America.  There were no carriage bombs, suicide explosive belts, 2000 pound bombs falling from the sky, or the ability to fire more than one round at a time.  The number of American volunteers killed over the course of the eighty month conflict 4,435, with an average of fifty-five killed per month of the conflict.  Here as in Iraq, the populace was split on whether it was wise, or even necessary, to fight the British for control of the American Colonies.  I have even read that the majority of the American colonists would have preferred to remain under the rule of King George.  In this case, I thank God that the minority won the day, if they actually were the minority.

The Civil War is the most costly conflict that this country has every seen, when you combine both Union and Confederate losses.  A combined 558,052 soldiers on both sides of the conflict, this is an average of 11,626 dead per month for the four years of that fight.  If you separate out Union from Confederate the death toll is still enormous.  The Union Army lost 359,528 soldiers.  This comes out to approximately 7,490 Union Soldiers dead every month.  In this war the media routed for the under-dogs, the Confederates, just like our current conflict in Iraq.  It got so heated in the papers that President Lincoln even jailed a journalist for sedition because of the scathing anti-union spin.    

The Civil War is a bit of a biased example seeing as all of those dead were Americans fighting on one side of the issue or the other.  I believe a better example to the war in Iraq is World War II.  The casualties are tallied by nation so it is easier to see the cost of freedom.  It is still the most costly war in terms of financially, costing just over 2 trillion dollars in 1990’s dollars, and cost much more.

Over the course of three years and eight months 407,316 Americans gave their lives for the liberation and security of European countries, as well as the fight against Japan.  Here again there is a very large average deaths per month, 9,257.  In the Battle for Iwo Jima the United States Marine Corps over the course of 34 days lost 8,226 Marines and Sailors. Most of these losses came in the early days of the fight.  If you put that into perspective that is over twice the losses in one 34 day battle with the Japanese, compared to 53 months fighting Al Quada in Iraq.   

The other similarity to World War II is that one could argue that we had absolutely no business going to join the fight in Europe.  I don’t remember any nation, outside of Japan, attacking us.  I was never taught about Germany bombing any of our interests, at home or abroad.  That is probably because they never did.  They did, however, park a submarine next to our coast and insert two spies that were caught and tried in a military tribunal.  Good thing we did not send them to Gitmo, the trail would still be going on today if the ACLU had any say in the matter.  

I guess one of the biggest differences between World War II and this go round in Iraq is that in the 1930’s I don’t believe that there were many politicians talking about our need to over throw Hitler and his buddies.  In the mid to late 90’s we had many politicians holding seats in the Senate or the House, as well as the Commander-in-Chief all saying the regime change in Iraq was a goal that was being worked on.  Many of the same Senators from the 90’s reiterated the point in 2002 when both houses of Congress were making sure the American people heard them the loudest.  It was fashionable to want to look and sound like a hawk back then.  Now it would seem that the exact opposite is true.

Every politician in Washington D.C. will tell you that they are not advocating our surrender to Al Quada.  They just think that we did our job in Iraq, especially since it was an unjust and needless war that they voted for in the first place.  Remember “I voted for the $87 Billion before I voted against it”.  The newest of catch phrases is “REDEPLOYMENT”.  No, they do not want us to cut and run from Iraq with our tail between our legs, they want our troops to remain safe at an undisclosed location away from the fight.  I mean God forbid that our fighting men and women actually fight an actual enemy that wants to kill as many Americans as they can.  It would probably be best if we only sent our brave troops to places that have nothing to do with the safety and security of America, how about sending them to Darfur.  There we can try to do the same job that we did in Somalia.  We can become the Salvation Army of the world.

This is the same mentality that cost us four airplanes, two or three buildings, and 3,000 plus civilian lives.  We cut and ran from Somalia, from a mission that the Marines and Amy soldiers were not properly trained to do,  no one taught them to ask if the Somalis wanted fries with that. 

My point is very simple, freedom is not free and the price of surrender just costs us more as a nation than I am willing to pay.