Why not suicide?

Leaders like General Eisenhower on D-Day and General Grant during the Civil War were leaders that were willing to risk men's lives to achieve their military goals. In times of great crisis, there is a need to spend lives. We were keeping the nation together and fighting global domination by a madman.

Antietam was the single bloodiest day in American History. We spent 60,000 lives that day. The Iraq war has cost 3,300 lives and 20,000 injuries over 4 years. People look at these numbers and argue them both ways. Some say that those lives are not much, the casualty rate is very low. Others say that those lives are buying nothing, so their loss is not acceptable.

Everyone seems to have a great deal of derision and distain for the suicide bomber. I think that in order to defend against attacks such as this, you have to try to look at an insurgent's point of view. Last week, a man blew up a the gasoline truck on a bridge. He was the driver of the truck. I remember thinking, "this guy was a suicider and he had a regular job as a gasoline truck driver?" That's a guy that seems pretty normal and he's capable of sacrificing himself in order to further his cause. Was he just crazy?

Iraq is not a stand up war. If insurgents wore uniforms and tried to make coordinated attacks with conventional weapons against our forces, we would wipe them out completely and decisively. If you look at combat, willing combat against a foe you are determined to never quit fighting, as a situation where you have a high chance of dying, then suiciders are actually doing something that makes good military sense. If they stood up, they would have been shot down in battle. Since they know they are going to die, they can pick a place and make it happen for maximum effect. One life, spent like a smart bomb, right to the heart of matter.

We in Western Society, with our history and our traditions can understand sacrifices like D-Day. Valiant struggles against the odds to complete a dire mission. I was talking about operation Market garden with a friend, who talked about how that was a waste. I would normally have agreed, but I realized that a bold stroke like that would have saved lives if it would have shortened the war.

The thing that we cannot understand is the choice of target. Choosing civilians as targets seems so alien. If the goal is to simply reap chaos, they are achieving that goal. If the goal is to provoke an over response in order to paint the occupiers as evil and gain recruits, they are probably doing that. If the goal is to hurt us, striking civilian targets do not do that. If the killings are simply sectarian targets of opportunity, then our presence isn't doing anything at all, we're just watching a civil war.

The more I think about it, the more I think we should just get out. There's no point in any of it. I don't believe that they will be over here if we don't fight them over there. That's doesn't make any sense. The presence of our troops over there doesn't change the tactics that you would use to attack the U.S. You would still try to send a small number of people to blend in and try to form an attack that can't be protected against. Say a backpack of explosives in Times Square. I fail to see how the Iraq war prevents someone from doing this. If we were going to quit defending ourselves and our borders after we withdraw from Iraq, then we would be more vulnerable. No one has ever suggested this. I think the insurgents will stay in Iraq to gain control from the opposing factions. That will probably keep them tied up for quite some while. When all that is done, they'll have to consolidate and hold power and stave off an insurgency from their opponents. I just don't buy the thought that staying in Iraq makes us more safe.