Balanced News Blog

The American Friends Service Committee is planning to hold parties around the country when the 2000th American soldier dies in Iraq. This is clearly one of the most sickening and perverted uses of our fallen heroes ever conceived.

To begin with, we have not yet reached 2,000 combat fatalities. 1,597 of the deaths are combat related. The left is fond of adding people who died of medical illnesses and accident victims to their list to inflate the number. Moreover, Iraq is not the quagmire the left had hoped it would be.

The objective in Vietnam was to remove the communists from power, gain control of the capital, install a democratic government and ratify a new constitution. They failed and 58,000 soldiers died in a war started by a Democrat.

In Iraq, the goal was to remove a maniacal dictator from power, gain control of the capital, install a democratic government and ratify a new constitution. We have succeeded and 1,600 soldiers have died in a war started by a Republican.

Terrorists launched an insurgency soon after we finished off the Republican Guard and had Saddam’s cronies on the run. Leftists fail to realize that we are engaged in a war on terror and that the insurgents are terrorists. I for one am glad we are not fighting them on U.S. soil. If the left had its way, that is exactly what we would be doing.

Fatality rates have also plummeted since Vietnam. According to the Washington Post:

Ten percent of soldiers injured in Iraq have died from their war wounds, the lowest casualty fatality rate ever, thanks in large part to technological advances and the deployment of surgical SWAT teams at the front lines, an analysis to be published today has found.

While we still have to deal with the insurgents, our goals in Iraq have been met, yet leftists still feel that the Iraqi people are not worth the cost. They want us to abandon Iraq and leave its citizens to the mercy of Islamic fanatics.

So while misguided leftists are throwing death toll parties all across America, I am confident that we have secured freedom for the Iraqi people. No longer will they have to worry about Saddam’s cronies gassing their villages, torturing their loved ones or murdering people for speaking their minds.

I am confident that when we look back on the Iraq war in the years to come, we will recognize that conservatives stood their ground and gave the Iraqi people a new birth of freedom. We will also look back and recognize that the left turned their backs on the suffering of millions of people. They stood up to be counted with Saddam and the worst humanity has to offer.