I will be criticized by some as being cold
and calculated for speaking of US war
deaths as statistics but the facts are what
they are and there is a point to be made.
War is a horrible, people die in war,
war is to be avoided. The loss of a single
soldier is a true tragedy. Wounds and emotional
scars from war can be forever. No, I do not
think of our soldiers in terms of numbers, but
the numbers do matter.
This war has been and is being fought
brilliantly. The leadership has been superb
and the men and women fighting it have been
awesome. Our forces are the best in the
world and the numbers back this up.
We are fighting a world wide campaign
against those who would destroy us given the
opportunity, and we are doing it very effectively
with a minimum number of causalities.
* In WWII we lost 112,000 per year
(that's 307 per day)
* The Korean "Conflict" 18,334 per year
(50 per day)
* In Viet Nam 5800 per year
(16 per day)
And each of these conflicts TOOK YEARS.
* In Iraq there have been to date 931
deaths in 16 months (2 per day)
* Afghanistan 129 deaths in 33 months
(one every 8 days)
Every one of these lost soldiers is a tragedy, but
the numbers are low for good reasons, great
leadership and our technically superior weapons.
(The ones Senator Kerry has consistently
voted against throughout his career)
War is not some game. War is ugly,
war is all about killing the enemy until
that enemy capitulates or victory is achieved.
Radical Islam declared war against us many
years ago and has attacked us repeatedly.
It has only been since 9-11 that we (some of us) have understood the depth of
hate we face in this conflict.
President Bush
and this administration have faced this truth
and are doing what must be done, and it is being
done with precision and restraint.
Radical Islam wants us dead people!
It's just that simple.
The Iraqi conflict is part and parcel in the effort
to change the middle east and defeat the extremist
we are at war with. There were many justified
reasons for removing Saddam, the 300,000 or so
in mass graves being a very good one,
but this is about far more than that.
This war is about defeating those
who want to destroy our way of life!
In the two years since terrorists attacked us
the Bush administration has.
* Liberated two countries, with an amazingly
low casualty rate.
* Crushed the Taliban, and severely
damaged al-Quida,
* Put nuclear inspectors in Libya, Iran and North Korea without firing a shot,
* Captured the terrorist who slaughtered more than
300,000 of his own people, and put an end to the cat and mouse games that Saddam
was playing with WMD.
President Bush has provided leadership
rather than being a follower of the UN.
He has put the interests of the United
States first. The President has been
attacked savagely by those who oppose war
but he has "stayed the course."
He has never wavered from exactly what
he promised after 9-11 when he said
"Terrorism will not Stand."
The coming election is critical, we cannot
afford to go back to simply treating terrorism
as a criminal act, and waiting for the
next attack to happen.
This is not the time to change directions!
George W Bush is the right
man for the job at the right time!
