JazzManJim
On the Downbeat
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2001
- Posts
- 27,360
In all my consideration on the current situation in Iraq one concern rises above all the others for me. I think that it is, perhaps, the real question about why we are there. Forgive me in advance, because I'm going to muddle through a couple different takes on the same thing here. But here's the question:
What is a life worth?
When we send our military into any sort of action, we are spending those lives. We understand that the military planners and strategists will find the best and most efficient ways to use soldiers to gain the objective with the minimum cost of life, but lives will still be lost. It is an immutable fact of conflict and we can not escape it.
Yet there are always valid reasons to spend those lives. We do this every day with things non-military. We spend the lives of police officers and firefighters and paramedics. We require them to enter situations every day where each one may mave to spend their life for one or more of ours and we never blink at that. We consider it a fair trade, "part of the job" and though we sometimes thank them we rarely consider how we spend them. When the Twin Towers fell, we spent hundreds in just a few moments and we called them heroes because the cost of their lives bought us thousands more. Their actions saved lives, but at the cost of their own.
But we seem to think differently when it comes to soldiers though their job is not so much different than that of a police officer or firefighter. They are our proxies. They stand in our stead willingly, believing that we will not spend their lives rashly or unwisely.
I understand all of this, yet I still believe that we are justified in spending those lives in Iraq. But why? The answer for me is simple (to explain, though not simple in the consideration I had to make to arrive at the decision). I am willing to spend their lives because in doing so, we are able to purchase the lives of millions. By standing them in the way of a truly evil man and risking them we are buying the lives of the Iraqi people. And we're not buying those lives for ourselves. We're buying those lives so that they can live them as they will. We are doing what our fathers and mothers did before us, and theirs before them. We are giving our soldiers one at a time to buy the freedom of millions.
Let's consider what we're risking. If, given the number of soldiers we have in the conflict at present, our armies were to suffer the losses we have suffered in most of our other wars we will lose one out of every thirteen soldiers. We do not believe that our losses could be that large, but they may. This means that we may lose approximately 17,000 soldiers in Iraq. That's an awfully big number. We may not be ready for that, given the successes we had there before, and in places like Grenada, Haiti, Bosnia, Panama, and even Somalia. Consider though, that in spending those 17,000 lives, we buy the lives of 24 or so million people. We give them the chance to live the lives we live right now, problems and all, but without the worries of random torture, imprisonment, or death.
That may not be worth it to some. There is a sentiment that we need only spend the lives of our soldiers on ourselves and you could make an argument (which I may make later) that we are doing that as well. But what seems most important to me is that we are doing this in the way we always have in the US and the way we likely always will - giving ourselves to give complete strangers life and liberty. Is it worth it? I believe it is.
What is a life worth?
When we send our military into any sort of action, we are spending those lives. We understand that the military planners and strategists will find the best and most efficient ways to use soldiers to gain the objective with the minimum cost of life, but lives will still be lost. It is an immutable fact of conflict and we can not escape it.
Yet there are always valid reasons to spend those lives. We do this every day with things non-military. We spend the lives of police officers and firefighters and paramedics. We require them to enter situations every day where each one may mave to spend their life for one or more of ours and we never blink at that. We consider it a fair trade, "part of the job" and though we sometimes thank them we rarely consider how we spend them. When the Twin Towers fell, we spent hundreds in just a few moments and we called them heroes because the cost of their lives bought us thousands more. Their actions saved lives, but at the cost of their own.
But we seem to think differently when it comes to soldiers though their job is not so much different than that of a police officer or firefighter. They are our proxies. They stand in our stead willingly, believing that we will not spend their lives rashly or unwisely.
I understand all of this, yet I still believe that we are justified in spending those lives in Iraq. But why? The answer for me is simple (to explain, though not simple in the consideration I had to make to arrive at the decision). I am willing to spend their lives because in doing so, we are able to purchase the lives of millions. By standing them in the way of a truly evil man and risking them we are buying the lives of the Iraqi people. And we're not buying those lives for ourselves. We're buying those lives so that they can live them as they will. We are doing what our fathers and mothers did before us, and theirs before them. We are giving our soldiers one at a time to buy the freedom of millions.
Let's consider what we're risking. If, given the number of soldiers we have in the conflict at present, our armies were to suffer the losses we have suffered in most of our other wars we will lose one out of every thirteen soldiers. We do not believe that our losses could be that large, but they may. This means that we may lose approximately 17,000 soldiers in Iraq. That's an awfully big number. We may not be ready for that, given the successes we had there before, and in places like Grenada, Haiti, Bosnia, Panama, and even Somalia. Consider though, that in spending those 17,000 lives, we buy the lives of 24 or so million people. We give them the chance to live the lives we live right now, problems and all, but without the worries of random torture, imprisonment, or death.
That may not be worth it to some. There is a sentiment that we need only spend the lives of our soldiers on ourselves and you could make an argument (which I may make later) that we are doing that as well. But what seems most important to me is that we are doing this in the way we always have in the US and the way we likely always will - giving ourselves to give complete strangers life and liberty. Is it worth it? I believe it is.
but I do value human life little higher ...a buck perhaps 
