Hyman, the point is that you complaining about historically, ridiculously low casualty rates as reason to get out of Iraq, even in the face of facts that shoot that argument to pieces, shows that you don’t care about facts at all.
Standard disclaimer: Each and every troop loss is a human tragedy beyond description, but death is part of life, and as societies, we make decisions every day about how many lives we are willing to lose to keep our society running. On average, one Police, Fire, Utility or Sanitation worker is killed every day. Judging by the fact that it doesn’t make the national news every night, we’ve decided as a society that it is within the realm of acceptable losses to have the society we have.

When Carter’s term was ending, we had an underfunded, neglected military, largely because of people like Hyman and their liberal views and distrust of the military left over from the VN era. It was apparently OK then to let military personnel die in training without much fuss, because they didn’t care about them anyway. Now that they might be a useful tool to advance their agenda, the casualties are suddenly very important. Now, we can fight a war and have fewer military deaths than we did for many years in peacetime, but it’s too much for poor Hyman. Right. Transparent as a pane of glass. Thanks for the illustration, Hyman.

Hyman thinks it is better to die via an accident than in a war for liberty. That’s nice.

Only idiots believe the US military trains like they party. They train like they fight. Fighting has dangers and so do training. The only people with disrespect are those who seek political advantage from the deaths in war but try to say deaths via accidents don’t matter, when they themselves include total deaths in Iraq with the accidents. They not only don’t know what is the difference between accidents and casualties due to war, but they don’t care.

in the last year of the Carter administration, there were MORE military deaths than in ANY year of the George W. Bush administration

The document you pointed to says that the number killed in 1981 by hostile action is zero. 69% of military deaths that year are listed as due to accident. Meanwhile, this site notes that we now have over 25,000 US casualties in the Iraq war.

Maybe it’s just me, but I find it disrespectful of our troops to suggest that the danger they face in Iraq should be equated with the danger of, say, driving an automobile.

Hyman, did you know that in the last year of the Carter administration, there were MORE military deaths than in ANY year of the George W. Bush administration? I’m sure you didn’t.

Bill10 says “The administration’s own National Intelligence Estimate on “Trends in Global Terrorism: implications for the United States,” circulated within the government in April 2006 and partially declassified in October, states that “the Iraq War has become the ‘cause celebre’ for jihadists…and is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives.”

You mean the NIE, produced by the same agencies that told us about the WMD’s I’m sure you keep reminding everyone we didn’t find? Now you’re a big believer in the NIE? Right. Actually, you aren’t even being honest about what the NIE says, or at least you’re getting a propagandized second hand version of it- try this reading of it for balance. The point in brief- “Paul Hodes of New Hampshire, are reading the NIE through a politically clouded lens. Hodes is quoted in the Tuesday Washington Post as saying, “The report underscores that the longer Bush and his enablers…keep us in Iraq, the more we undermine our own security.” Actually, it says no such thing.” Thanks Jed Babbin.

Actually right now you have a 3-way split in both major political parties: Anti-war, Pro-War, and Fencesitters. The Dems have a lot of Anti-War, a whole lot of Fencesitters, and a couple of Pro-War members. The Republicans have a lot of Pro-war, some Fencesitters, and a few Anti-War members.

Post-9/11, there was a vast majority of Pro, and very few Anti, but as time progressed and the conflict proved as long and hard as President Bush had projected (if you were listening), a number of the Pros have slowly “Grown” to new positions as Fencesitters or Antis, while some of the Pros have been unelected and replaced by Antis or Fencesitters. Some have Grown from moral reasons, because they have honestly changed their opinions. Some have Grown from cynical reasons, because they see more Votes over on the other side (guess what Senators and Presidential Candidates I’m thinking of) or did not really believe in the Pro side anyway and were just positioning themselves.

At this point, the only people who I consider to have the courage of their convictions are the ones with the same opinions as they had back in 2002. I’m a Pro who realizes this is going to be a long and difficult fight, and I will respect the Anti who opposes violence for any means, although I will fight to prevent that same Anti from taking our country down that self-destructive path (sorry Screwy, no Presidential nomination for you 🙂

By Georgfelis, at Fri Mar 09