Iraq Longer Than WWII.- So What?

We’ve all heard the phrase that US Forces have been in Iraq longer than we were engaged in WWII with the Japanese and Germans. But what does that really mean is there some sort of expiration date on conflict? Academic Elephant posting at Red State offers some insight on this and some relevance for those that only see the timeline.

According to the Department of Defense (click on "Casualty Reports" to download the PDF), we have lost 2303 of our best and brightest to combat in Iraq to date--which is for me a far more tangible cost to our nation than the number of days we've been there. How does that stack up against WWII? The battle death tally for WWII was 292,131. More than a quarter of a million. 292,131. It's a staggering number, especially when you remember that the total population of the United States was less than half than it is now in 1941 at roughly 132 million. The AP might also consider that during the period we were involved in WWII, we lost servicemen at the rate of 6,639 per month. Per month. I'm sorry, I keep repeating myself, but as someone who did not live through that war, the numbers are so large that they become abstract and I'm having trouble making them real. Maybe that's why the AP chooses to harp on the number of days we've been in Iraq in comparison to WWII. We can all comprehend three years and eight months. We can remember where we were in May, 2003 and mark the passage of time. It's a little more challenging to grasp that over that same time span during WWII, we suffered casualties at more than 100% the rate we have in Iraq. 2303 x 100= 230,300. We're still 60,000 short of our losses in WWII. 60,000. I can hardly wrap my brain around it.

I can hardly wrap my brain around it either AE. I have to agree with you when you note that even though we have been in Iraq 1 day longer than we were engaged in WWII, that we still have 290,000 fewer deaths, 290,000 fewer deaths fighting a war that even back then was deemed unnecessary by some in our country and abroad.

290,000 that’s a huge number, over one quarter of a million men and women in uniform died fighting a genocidal tyrant, and yet while 2303 of our finest have given their lives in the fight against another genocidal tyrant, the American media outlets have all but given up the ship, the war is lost they cry out. And yet, if it is the huge loss of life that they so decry, why did we not hear them cry about the literally hundreds of thousands that Saddam killed, or the thousands that have died in Iran, or Darfur, or anywhere else where the Islamic extremists operate?

3 years and eight months, I wonder if they even realize that we’ve “occupied” Europe and Japan for the past 61 years. I wonder how long we will need to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan.