From Noodlefood:
In other words, 340 American soldiers have died in Afghanistan fighting for absolutely nothing. In Iraq, 2801 American soldiers have died for worse than nothing, i.e. in order to create yet another virulently anti-American Islamic regime. In both conflicts, over 10,000 American soldiers have been seriously wounded.
Yet in a recent (11/2) TIA Daily article entitled “Is Bush All Hat and No Cattle?”, Robert Tracinski claims that “All of Bush’s errors [in Iraq] could have been, and still can be, corrected.” Did I miss something? Has Jesus granted President Bush the power to raise the dead and heal the wounded?
It’s not mere “error” to kill over 3,000 American soldiers and seriously wound more than 10,000 for the sake of granting our Islamist enemies the power to vote in Islamist governments that will shelter, organize, and finance the terrorists who will attack America and other civilized nations in upcoming years. It’s not mere “error” for an American President to pursue that strategy despite overwhelming evidence of its grossly self-destructive results.
So let’s call a spade a spade: President Bush’s foreign policy is active, deliberate, and blind self-sacrifice. That’s not error. It’s evil.
Comments Professor John Lewis in TOS:
One argument made for a Republican vote in this election—and the support it will bring to President Bush—is that Bush has the right foreign policy aims in mind; he errs only in their pursuit. If we would just give him the support he needs, he will correct his errors—thus speak his apologists.
Well, some 3,000 Americans have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, and over 10,000 have been maimed. Until those apologists raise the dead and restore lost limbs, the “errors” remain uncorrectable.
Bush has had nearly four years to watch this horrendous destruction of our youth—and to understand its purpose, and its cause. But the more body bags and stretchers come home, and the more our position deteriorates, the more he demands we “stay the course.” What course? The good of the Iraqis, which trumps all other considerations.
This is not error. This is the intentional, ongoing, committed sacrifice of our young people to foreign strangers. This is evil.
Please spare me the rejoinder that Iraq is a “small war” next to World War II, and that we lost 12,500 dead and over 50,00 wounded at Okinawa alone. The war is not small to that 25 year old soldier who wanted to protect his country, but ended up losing his legs for the Iraqis. It is the purpose of the war—sacrifice on behalf of others—that makes it evil, not the body count.
The withdrawal of support for the Iraq war by the American people is a healthy response to this sacrificial carnage. It is their recognition, even though implicit, that that the Iraqis have no claim on the lives of our young people.