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May 26, 2006
Looking Back at Iraq
A war to be proud of.
by Victor Davis Hanson

… But what did 2,400 brave and now deceased Americans really sacrifice for in Iraq, along with thousands more who were wounded? And what were billions in treasure spent on? And what about the hundreds of collective years of service offered by our soldiers? What exactly did intrepid officers in the news like a Gen. Petreus, or Col. McMaster, or Lt. Col Kurilla fight for?

First, there is no longer a mass murderer atop one of the oil-richest states in the world. Imagine what Iraq would now look like with $70 a barrel oil, a $50 billion unchecked and ongoing Oil-for-Food U.N. scandal, the 15th year of no-fly zones, a punitative U.N. embargo on the Iraqi people — all perverted by Russian arms sales, European oil concessions, and frenzied Chinese efforts to get energy contracts from Saddam.

The Kurds would remain in perpetual danger. The Shiites would simply be harvested yearly, in quiet, by Saddam’s police state. The Marsh Arabs would by now have been forgotten in their toxic dust-blown desert. Perhaps Saddam would have upped his cash pay-outs for homicide bombers on the West Bank.

Mohammar Khaddafi would be starting up his centrifuges and adding to his chemical weapons depots. Syria would still be in Lebanon. Washington would probably have ceased pressuring Egypt and the Gulf States to enact reform. Dr. Khan’s nuclear mail-order house would be in high gear. We would still be hearing of a “militant wing” of Hamas, rather than watching a democratically elected terrorist clique reveal its true creed to the world.

But just as importantly, what did these rare Americans not fight for? Oil, for one thing. The price skyrocketed after they went in. The secret deals with Russia and France ended. The U.N. petroleum perfidy stopped. The Iraqis, and the Iraqis alone — not Saddam, the French, the Russians, or the U.N. — now adjudicate how much of their natural resources they will sell, and to whom.
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Reading about Gettysburg, Okinawa, Choisun, Hue, and Mogadishu is often to wonder how such soldiers did what they did. Yet never has America asked its youth to fight under such a cultural, political, and tactical paradox as in Iraq, as bizarre a mission as it is lethal. And never has the American military — especially the U.S. Army and Marines — in this, the supposedly most cynical and affluent age of our nation, performed so well.

We should remember the achievement this Memorial Day of those in the field who alone crushed the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, stayed on to offer a new alternative other than autocracy and theocracy, and kept a targeted United States safe from attack for over four years.

Terp Mole on September 22, 2006 at 10:16 PM

I originally wrote the following letter to my local newspaper when the milestone of 2000 was met. The numbers have changed, but the feelings are as strong as ever in me. (yes, it got published, right after an anti-war letter, to my astonishment);

Terrorism continues, too
November 2, 2005

With the all the mention recently of families mourning the 2,000th loss of loved ones in Iraq, I also think of the families still mourning from 9/11. I also think of the families mourning from the USS Cole as well as others mourning the Khobar Towers bombing.

There are literally thousands of families, American, European, Arab, and Asian, who mourn the loss of loved ones at the hands of terrorists. These terrorists have to be stopped. This war on terror should have been started 30 years ago, before they gained the support and power they have today. Appease them now and imagine the power they will have 10 or 20 years from now.

At the same time as I shed my tears over these 2,000, I also beam with pride that this latest generation has produced such fine young men and women who willingly placed themselves in harm’s way for the protection and liberation of others and have paid the ultimate sacrifice. Their sacrifices are not to be taken lightly, denigrated or sensationalized but deserve to be held up to the entire world as among the finest people this country has ever produced.

As in John 15:13, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

Lew Waters
Vancouver

LewWaters on September 22, 2006 at 11:13 PM

Gives weighty perspective to the atrocities committed 5 years ago, when the loss of life from that one day is equal to three and a half years of warfare.

I call it “Day One” in the WOT. Two countries conquered and two psycho regimes removed since then at a cost of lives equal to the first day sneak attack.

The jihadists see it as “two buildings for us, two of our countries for them”. That calculates to a huge loss from their perspective.

Perchant on September 23, 2006 at 12:25 AM

Every one of those lives lost is precious and irreplacable, but historically speaking, 3,000 lives lost in 5 years in incredibly low.

WW1: 50,000 Americans died in one year.

Korean War: 53,000 in 3 years.

WW2: Okinawa, Corrigador, Tarawa, Iwo Jima, Pelileu etc etc.

Every loss of life is tragic, but relatively speaking, you couldn’t get lower numbers unless you fought from the air and sea only.

Tony737 on September 23, 2006 at 1:01 AM

US WWII deaths: ~300,000
Pearl Harbor Deaths: 2117

Number of times MSNBC would have to run a retarded original-death-multiple-grim-milestone article?

141.

DaveS on September 23, 2006 at 1:18 AM

Off-topic (but not unrelated), there are some linked stories on Drudge citing the possibility of Bin Laden’s death of typhoid in late August. Might just be empty speculation (like in the past). But it’s sorta gratifying to imagine him literally wasting away in a cave somewhere.

SailorDave on September 23, 2006 at 11:13 AM