“THE IRAQ EXPERIMENT”

As of this print, the death toll of American troops in Iraq stands at 2096. The number of soldiers wounded in battle is at a staggering 15,568. The almost forgotten war in Afghanistan is on a steady diet of death and destruction as well, with the dead and wounded at 248 and 654 respectively. When these gruesome numbers are put in context with the total number of troops deployed (approx. 175,000) it comes out to about 1 in 10 soldiers either returning in a body bag or returning seriously incapacitated. The numbers are quite startling and the truth of the matter is that if these numbers were extrapolated to 11 years, which was the length of the Vietnam War, they would be eerily comparable. Armed with these facts, we have the luxury of applying hindsight to issues related to war and their ramifications. Armed with these facts, we are better able to have and open dialogue with some of our critics about this “IRAQ EXPERIMENT”. We should no longer use the term “War”, instead we should label this excursion what it really is.