Quote from Pa(b)st Prime:
Doc, I know you hate the war and the commie neo-con's but spare the drama. History will little note nor long remember a war that killed less Americans in three years than often died in a typical DAY of WWll. Even Nam was about 10x deadlier than Iraq.
This war was stupid, expensive and worst yet it doomed us to a few years of Dems. But forget about the big picture, even in the small picture it's not that big of deal. There's 300,000,000 people in this country. 3000 died in Iraq. Suck? Of course it does. But around the same number of L.A. County gang-bangers have died during the same period. Is that a "national tragedy"? Fuck no. (I wish 3 million of those guys would die). Other than paying a buck more for gas (which might not even be Iraq related) America felt no pain over this war. I'm not rationalizing the horror but I do think it's ironic that blacks will murder several thousand American's this year (and those victims aren't paid enlistees) but one's a racist if they even mention that. Yet folks will opine for freakin' years that Bush is the devil incarnate because he launched a relatively small operation in Iraq.
So while I know you oppose the war for the RIGHT reasons, compared to the sort of civil, economic and REAL war type calamities that will someday bestow us, this is a pimple. It would be like an 80yo freaking out over a blister. He's ignoring his bigger probs lurking around the corner.....
Jeez, LBJ and Bush. Now I know why you left Texas as soon as you were able.
Although as your Civil War caveat suggests, I too am an Illinoisan who's less than enamored by honest Abe. I think he'd have sacrificed every man in America if it meant stemming succession....
It's a pretty big deal if you consider that Bush picked the wrong member of the "axis of evil" to attack. Now both N. Korea and Iran have the WMD that we went to Iraq to look for. And we can do nothing about it because our troops are tied up in Iraq.
The real legacy of the Iraq war is the nuclear Iran and N. Korea. We just don't know yet how serious a problem they will present.
