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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (205177)	10/4/2006 10:08:02 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Maurice, re: "To have only 3000 soldiers killed after 4 years of war, is not exactly a major loss. It's trivial as wars go. I know it's unfashionable to put dollars on things, but at $300 billion for the war, that's $100 million per dead soldier. Soldiers are not worth $100 million. Adding in the maimed, would make it more like $30 million per dead and maimed. So, the greater problem is the money down the drain. [If $300 bn is about how much has been spent and committed - survivor long-term payments etc]" I know you love to stir the pot and that at times you relish overstating an independent point of view. I usually enjoy that aspect of your posts but you've gone too far this time. Some things are too sacred to be taken lightly. Molestation of children, the rape of women and the sacrifice of the lives of soldiers in a time of war are examples of such things. If, however, you weren't being facetious then your analysis is shallow. What would make you believe that the deaths of young men and women in service of their country could be justified in terms of the gross number of lives lost, or dollars per soldier dead, or some other metric that would trivialize even one death? The only metric that will justify the death of even ONE soldier requires a sober analysis of three criteria I've articulated several times: IS THE CAUSE JUST AND WORTH DYING FOR? IS THE MISSION DOABLE? and, *IS THERE ANY POSSIBLE WAY TO ACHIEVE THE END WITHOUT WAGING WAR? If those criteria are not then not ONE death is justified. If they are met then, sadly, it's one of those things that are worth our own death or the deaths of the soldiers we send in our stead. But maybe you're of a different view. Maybe you believe that human lives should be viewed as commodities that can be traded profitably? You wouldn't be the first to hold such a view nor to act on it but most of the civilized world has rejected such an immoral view of the value of human life. We don't allow murder defendants to go free if they can prove that the life they took was a "bargain" for them or for society. We don't "comfort" those who've lost loved ones by pointing out to them how many more people die each day from criminal activity, old age, disease or car wrecks. We don't allow businesses to sacrifice the lives of test subjects or workers "for business" or even for the "public good." We don't accept any of those things. Deep within us resides an inherent belief that there are very few instances where we'll accept the right of one man to send another to his death. So it doesn't matter, at all, that in terms of wars the Iraqi war American losses are "trivial." And we can know that lives of soldiers aren't worth less than, or more than, "100 million" per dead. There is no dollar price for the life of a soldier. And there certainly isn't one soldier's death that can reasonably be deemed "trivial." I hope you can understand that. Ed