Are Our Troops Dying in Vain?
by James Glaser
September 18, 2007

We are now in our fifty-fifth month of combat in Iraq. On average 69 American troops are killed each month, and another 506 are wounded. That works out to over 18 Americans killed or wounded every day, day in and day out, month after month, and year after year. The total is now well over 30,000.

George Bush and those who want this war to continue tell us that if we leave now, all the troops who have been killed or wounded would have suffered in vain. For the pro-war side it is victory or nothing. They are willing to continue our losses for years to come, in the hope that we will be victorious in the end.

Of course everyone has their own idea of what victory will look like. The fact remains, if we stay another five years, or just as long as it takes the next president to get our troops home, and this unnamed victory still proves elusive, all of those troops wounded or killed in the mean time will have suffered in vain.

Of course we are not even thinking about the tens or hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis that will die in the near future. We do know, or we should know that our presence is the catalyst for combat. We are the enemy for every Iraqi faction. Yes, I know the Kurds, and now some of the Sunni are taking our money and weapons, but history tells us that arming our enemy is not a good idea. Remember we are the country that armed and supported Osama bin Laden a while back.

If we leave now, a lot of Iraqis are going to die in a civil war. If we stay, a lot of Iraqis will die in a civil war. The only difference is that if we leave now, no more Americans will die, and just maybe Iraq's civil war will be short. I think it is safe to say, as long as American troops stay in Iraq, there will be Iraqis trying to kill our troops.

How long would you fight to get a foreign military occupation out of America?

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