"All my fights except maybe in 6th grade were of the cornered rat type."

Yeah. The 'last' fight I ever fought (I was in 6th grade too), the one that put the kid in the hospital, was like this. A group of kids decided to come after me, some bigger, some smaller than myself, I didn't have much hope that I could out-run them or whip all of them (I was pretty big for my age), so I latched onto their 'leader' and went to work. Oddly, his name was Mark. ;-)

I felt really horrible that I hurt the kid, but over time I just felt dismayed that the school fostered the sort of violence that it did, and that even the principal thought it was 'formative' and 'good for the kids'. Meanwhile kids like me wondered if they were going to kill or get killed.

"On the other hand you still can't get clear that relative number of deaths concept. "

That depends on what you mean, Mark. Do I 'get' that this is a justification you like to employ? Yes. Have I thought it through? Yes. Do I accept it? Hell no.

That Saddam was killing his populace I agree with. It is the case that Saddam was Killing 'n' Iraqis against their will as a people. I simply don't buy that this justifies us in killing 'n - m' Iraqis.

This is really simple here. You can't justify doing something that is fundamentally wrong (Killing people) because someone else is doing something worse (killing more people).

We all agree that killing is fundamentally wrong, but sometimes necessary. If you think killing is NOT fundamentally wrong, then please stay away from other people. If you think that killing in war is NOT fundamentally wrong (albeit justified in the case of just wars) look at pictures of dead 'enemy' soldiers and tell me why its uncomfortable to look at them.

Furthermore, we can't justify killing 'n-m' people because so-and-so is killing 'n'. This is a moral argument that is akin to 'Justin kicked the cat, so I am not bad if I only pull its tail'

Lastly, morality and moral justification is MORE than just a calculation on the value or sum of values of individual lives. Principles, faith, values and morals are held by cultures to be, more often than not, more important than life itself. People die for their beliefs every day... Patrick Henry: "Give me liberty or give me death".

So you can't justify this war on 'comparative' body-count, or that we are screwing for chastity or killing to stop other killing. You need something more. You need a discussion of real morality, which extends beyond a body-count calculus and into principles, values and morals.

Now, the next move in this moronic circle is to next jump into notions of liberation or justified self-defense, and I'll be glad to debate this again if you want to go there, but what is the point?

"That is the application of the bully analogy."
I don't see how it POSSIBLY is a meaningful one.

"No analogy is perfect but the underlying principle of taking action to minimize harm rather than acting blameless for allowing harm holds true"

Argument by analogy is pointless because everything is LIKE everything else in some way. Saddam/Iraq is not a schoolyard bully, he is Saddam. We are NOT (as the worlds leading/only superpower) a bullied person. We are the USA. The world is not a school yard. Your analogy is misleading at best and ill-founded at worst.

"taking action to minimize harm rather than acting blameless for allowing harm holds true"

Lets try another use-case for your moral maxim of lessor-body count:
Well, by your moral maxim I should move in and shoot-up East LA, or Liberty Towenship here in pittsburgh, put everyone under armed lockdown and use asymmetric violence against their civic will as a people because, well, more people will die if I don't- or I could at least argue that. So damn their will as a people, Damn their pride, damn the innocent grandmas, damn the children- shoot the area up and stop the violence of a few by killing many unconnected to that violence.

I just don't think your unary-principled moral system will work, mark.

Davin