Re: Bob L.

[Nomen Nescio <nobody@xxxxxxxxx>]

Jim said:

>I think that the people who want the US out of Iraq have forgotten
>about the "Killing Fields" after Vietnam.
>
>What was that again?  3 million people?

The question to ask is, how many American lives are you willing to invest
to prevent this supposed bloodbath?

Pick a number, and I'm not trying to be a smartass.  Part of being a
military commander is thinking about how many troops are going to get
killed in order to accomplish your objective, and deciding whether the
objective is worth the cost.

Are you willing to sacrifice 10,000 American lives to prevent the massacre
of 3,000,000 Iraqis, assuming those numbers are accurate?

I wish our pathetic excuse for leaders would think about questions like
this before sending in the Army.  War is an ugly, messy business.  Lots of
young people die.  Before we ask them to make that sacrifice, we had all
better agree that the benefits are worth the cost.

Personally, I'd rather arm the Iraqis and let them settle their own
differences in their own way, rather than spending more American lives
trying to play referee in a death match.  I might even go for a safe haven,
if that's possible, where unarmed, peaceful Iraqis can go.  But we're not
going to succeed in forcing the entire population to be nonviolent, and
trying will only result in more American casualties.