9/11 Times Two

I suspect Calvin Woodward had this article prepared ahead of time.

It's not news. It was inevitable.

The death toll in Iraq and Afghanistan has met the death toll from the 9/11 attacks.

It's another milestone that the Dems and the lib media have been eagerly awaiting to exploit.

That makes me sick.

WASHINGTON -- Now the death toll is 9/11 times two. U.S. military deaths from Iraq and Afghanistan now match those of the most devastating terrorist attack in America's history, the trigger for what came next. Add casualties from chasing terrorists elsewhere in the world, and the total has passed the Sept. 11 figure.

The latest milestone for a country at war comes without commemoration. It also may well come without the precision of knowing who is the 2,973rd man or woman of arms to die in conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, or just when it happens. The terrorist attacks killed 2,973 victims in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

I don't like the way the deaths of the 9/11 victims and the military are being used to advance the Left's political agenda.

What's the point of mentioning the numbers at all?

What does it prove?

What does it achieve?

Not for the first time, war that was started to answer death has resulted in at least as much death for the country that was first attacked, quite apart from the higher numbers of enemy and civilians killed.

Historians note that this grim accounting is not how the success or failure of warfare is measured, and that the reasons for conflict are broader than what served as the spark.

The body count from World War II was far higher for Allied troops than for the crushed Axis. Americans lost more men in each of a succession of Pacific battles than the 2,390 people who died at Pearl Harbor in the attack that made the U.S. declare war on Japan. The U.S. lost 405,399 in the theaters of World War II.

Despite a death toll that pales next to that of the great wars, one casualty milestone after another has been observed and reflected upon this time, especially in Iraq.

There was the benchmark of seeing more U.S. troops die in the occupation than in the swift and successful invasion. And the benchmarks of 1,000 dead, 2,000, 2,500.

Now this.

Who keeps dwelling on these benchmarks?

It's those trying to undermine the mission -- the Democrats, the lib media, the terrorists.

There is nothing more special about number 1,000 than 1,001.

The significance of a human life lost cannot be measured by what number it happens to be.

"There's never a good war but if the war's going well and the overall mission remains powerful, these numbers are not what people are focusing on," said Julian Zelizer, a political historian at Boston University. "If this becomes the subject, then something's gone wrong."

People are focusing on the numbers only to the extent that politicians and media outlets like AP are focusing on them.

Zelizer would be wiser to analyze the Dems and their allies in the press than "the people."

Beyond the tribulations of the moment and the now-rampant doubts about the justification and course of the Iraq war, Zelizer said Americans have lost firsthand knowledge of the costs of war that existed keenly up to the 1960s, when people remembered two world wars and Korea, and faced Vietnam.

"A kind of numbness comes from that," he said. "We're not that country anymore — more bothered, more nervous. This isn't a country that's used to ground wars anymore."

We're more bothered and more nervous than previous generations? Really?

I wouldn't call it "bothered" and "nervous." I would call it self-centered and pampered.

The fact is there still are Americans that believe in liberty, so much so that they are willing to make sacrifices and possibly die for it. Not all Americans are the "bothered" and "nervous" sort.

No. There still are heroes among us.

...A new study on the war dead and where they come from suggests that the notion of "rich man's war, poor man's fight" has become a little truer over time.

Among the Americans killed in the Iraq war, 34 percent have come from communities reporting the lowest levels of family income. Half come from middle income communities and only 17 percent from the highest income level.

That's a change from World War II, when all income groups were represented about equally. In Korea, Vietnam and Iraq, the poor have made up a progressively larger share of casualties, by this analysis.

Two-thirds of the casualties in Iraq do NOT come from poor backgrounds. Accordingly, it's hard to make the argument that the poor are bearing the burden of the war.

In terms of the income level percents, there was a draft in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. That's a factor.

Eye-for-an-eye vengeance was not the sole motivator for what happened after the 2001 attacks any more than Pearl Harbor alone was responsible for all that followed. But Pearl Harbor caught the U.S. in the middle of mobilization, debate, rising tensions with looming enemies and a European war already in progress. Historians doubt anyone paid much attention to sad milestones once America threw itself into the fight.

Why weren't the milestones recognized in World War II?

Perhaps it's because people understood the necessity of making tremendous sacrifices for freedom. Maybe they didn't dwell on the painful numbers because they knew that defeat was not an option. Cutting and running wasn't on the table.

In contrast, the United States had no imminent war intentions against anyone on Sept. 10, 2001. One bloody day later, it did.

What's the point?

That the U.S. didn't realize the gravity of the terrorist threat prior to 9/11?

That we didn't grasp the fact that Islamic extremists had declared war on the U.S. back in the 90s?

The denial of the 90s, not seriously addressing the series of terror attacks, brought us to September 11, 2001.

At the time, it was easier to put on blinders and kid ourselves. That proved to be a disaster.

Haven't we learned that we can't appease this barbaric enemy?

It's horrible that terrorists killed nearly three thousand people on 9/11. It's horrible that there is war in Iraq and Afghanistan and so many have been killed.

It's horrible that so many people have died because Islamic extremists want us dead.