While President Bush and other Republican politicians spent the day exploiting the memory of those we lost five years ago, the nation overlooked a grim milestone: More Americans have now died in Iraq than died on 9/11. Iraq didn't attack us on that day, and our misguided policy there has now taken more American lives than Al Qaeda.
Here are the numbers: 3,015 Americans have died in Iraq as of September 9. 2,666 of these were military deaths and 349 were civilians.
Disgraceful. 2,900 plus innocent civilians were slaughtered in a matter of two hours on September 11th. 3,ooo plus volunteer soldiers have died over three plus years defending against what Republicans and Democrats (see post below) saw as a clear and present threat to the national security of this nation. And I'll go a step farther to illustrate why Iraq was seen as a threat. Prior to 9-11, Iraq was seen as a tolerable threat that the West had time to deal with because it was not believed that Iraq could project its threat to our shores. After 9-11 it became clear that 19 religous fanatics could project a threat to the shores of the United States with the right backing. That made Iraq, a possible/probable supporter of terror, an intolerable threat because it was now understood that it could project lethal and destructive force through terrorist proxies, even if it was not directly behind the attacks of 9/11.
Those who play this stupid numbers game want their cake and to eat it, too. In other words, they want you to believe that 9-11 had nothing to do with why we focused in on Iraq, but at the same time they want to equate the sudden death of thousands of innocents with the deaths over years of brave soldiers who have volunteered to protect this nation's security. Frankly, their game is offensive and it insults the intelligence.
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