As a brown American, I suppose that what matters to me is how many brown people have died in Iraq BECAUSE Westerners (Americans) have been involved. In particular, I am concerned that Iraq has 5 million orphans as of the end of 2007 (35 percent of their child population.) I wonder how many of those brown children would have had brown parents and now have lost both of theirs...how many more, who have lost only a single parent, are not even counted in that statistic. And I wonder how many of those mothers' and fathers' lives were taken by OUR (usually less-brown) forces.solicitr wrote:The point is that vastly, vastly more people will die if the US Army is gone. But apparently to you it doesn't matter how many brown prople die so long as Westerners aren't involved.People will die? Of course people will die. They've been dying all along. Somehow it's better if they die while the US army is in Iraq, than if it wasn't?
In twenty years, we will react with horror and surprise when some of those children - whose parents' lives were lost by a violent situation we created (or at least, greatly exacerbated by our presence) - turn on us with guerilla style violence. And though their actions may be no more moral than ours, it will be the height of chutzpah on our part to display that horror and surprise.