“by historical standards of warfighting, American combat deaths in Iraq have been astonishngly low.”
That’s beside the point. The point was that saying that bush has toppled two bad regimes while increasing military deaths only 20% is not a valid comparison.
I’ve only got a minute, so I’ll be brief:
I’m not saying we should be in africa but not iraq. I’m saying that “offering the middle east an alternative to totalitarian regimes” doesn’t cut it as a reason to invade iraq. If we cared about the people of other countries (as opposed to strictly our own interests) our money and lives would be at least as well spent in africa as iraq. My point is that that’s not why we’re in iraq. We’re not there for the people of iraq.
Whether we should or shouldn’t help the people of the world is a separate question. But if bush’s answer to that question is “we should,” then we should be in africa. If bush’s answer to that question is “we shouldn’t,” then he shouldn’t use it as an excuse to ivade iraq.
