Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to re: Grim milestone...

re: Grim milestone...
Tom Brosz — (archived)

1) I never brought up automobile accidents. Take it up with Rush.

2) Any war will kill civilians. We have gone further out of our way to avoid this than in any war in history. This deliberate approach has cost the lives of many American troops. Civilians were dying before we got there, and in greater numbers over the years.

3) Soldiers exist to place their lives between death and the civilian population.

They are volunteers. The people who died on 9/11 were not.

If two soldiers, or policemen, or firemen, die saving a civilian, this is not the same thing as if two civilians die while their protectors live. Talk to someone in any of those professions. Soldiers in Iraq, for the record, feel this way about Iraqi civilians, too.

4) Why? Perspective. I am buried in hysteria about how many people we have lost in this war. The losses are terrible. But compared to EVERY other major conflict we have been in, the losses have been nearly microscopic. Since 1980, about 900 military personnel a year have died from accidental causes, in training and otherwise. Their loved ones mourn just as much. What did their deaths buy?

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