What can be said when the number of dead American soldiers

[Road Scholar]

equals the number killed on 9/11.Nothing? Has it any significance? Maybe Iraq can be connected to 9/11 then. Since our soldiers were sent to their death under false pretenses,it has to be a noteworthy benchmark. Maybe it puts george bush in the same category as Osama bin Laden. I'm still trying to understand the relevance. Your thoughts might make it easy to understand. :shrug:

[sui generis]

1. It's kind of like

somebody destroys your garden gnomes and you know who did it, so you go destroy theirs and burn down their house. Then you go next door and burn down the apartment complex too because they probably have weapons of gnome destruction, even though you can't prove it. After the complex is well and truly on fire you claim you set the fire to liberate the tenants. Only problem is, every tenant there wants to be in charge and is willing to kill every other tenant to make it so.

Well isn't this a fine mess we've stepped into.

[Road Scholar]

2. Pretty good analysis. Thanks

[Brotherjohn]

3. We're willing to sacrifice 3000 Americans to avenge 3000 Americans. Except

... this little part: It isn't even avenging them. It isn't even getting the people who did it.

More to the point, it's "sacrificing" at least ten times that many Iraqi civilians (by Bush's OWN admission today) to accomplish, well... whatever it is we were supposed to be accomplishing there.

It used to be ridding Saddam of WMDs, then it was removing an ally of Al Qaeda, then... of whatever.

Even TODAY, Bush used this line: "So we gave Saddam Hussein the chance to disclose or disarm. And he refused" (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1151AP_Bush_Text_2nd_Take.html)... when everyone knows DAMN WELL that he HAD DISARMED! He just freakin' sits there and tells bald-faced lies!

How many tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, or millions... will end up dying so that we can "protect" ourselves against some hypothetical terrorist WMD strike that may or may not ever happen and may or may not ever kill (maybe) thousands or Americans?

This is why it has been a long-standing principle of international law and warfare (until Bush) to only attacked if you were attacked, or if there were an actual imminent threat of attack.

[Lex]

4. It will be a sad benchmark, indeed.

Osama Bin Laden struck out at the people (in the Twin Towers) who had nothing to do with his grievances against the U.S.

George W. Bush struck out at Saddam Hussein and the Iraqis who had nothing to do with the strike on the Twin Towers.


Both are mad men in my opinion.

[dmkinsey]

5. What will be the significance? I say nothing

Who will care? bush? Rummy? the republicans, bushbots and rightwingers?
No, they didn't care when US dead passed 1000. They didn't care when US dead passed 2000. Why should they care when our dead count passes 3000?

Us? Will we care? of course we will, but we've been caring about this all along and I don't imagine that our caring, outrage and anger will increase after yet another sad milestone is passed.
Really, for most of us the outrage needle has been off the scale for a long time.

[Road Scholar]

6. Thanks for the thoughts. I do think it's noteworthy.