Thinking Critically On Iraq

It seems that every day now, more and more people continue to say that "the War in Iraq is going badly." Over and over this gets repeated, not just in media outlets such as CNN but also by normal, everyday people who are opposed to the War. The endless repetition of this phrase has certainly had its intended effect; despite the fact that it really means absolutely nothing. Seriously. So you think the War in Iraq is going badly - compared to what? Other wars? Life under Saddam? Chicken Soup?

You see, when you say that something is 'bad' or 'good' you are referencing some other standard or thing. For example: when you hear a new rap song, you will (assuming you have any intelligence) say that it is 'bad' music. The reason you say this is because comparable to all the other music you've heard, the rap stinks. In other words the song by itself isn't bad or good, it's the comparison with all the other kinds of music you've heard that enables one to make such a judgment. (This explains why people in the 1300's were so enthralled by Gregorian Chant - they had merely never heard anything else, and were thus unaware of how bad it sucked.)

And so that brings us back to Iraq; which, we are told, is going 'badly.' Since the folks saying this generally do so in reference to "the war" let's assume that they mean it's going badly compared to other past wars in American History. Unfortunately, such a statement would not only be inaccurate, but an outright lie. The War in Iraq is the 2nd least expensive war we have ever fought, as a percentage of the GDP, surpassed only by the First Gulf War (which lasted a few months as opposed to 3+ years). The Iraq War has cost the 4th fewest lives of any of the Wars we have fought, surpassed only by the Spanish-American War, the War of 1812, and, again, the short Gulf War I. Indeed, to put this statistic in perspective, if all the American casualties from Iraq were multiplied by 6, that total would still not even be one of the 10 deadliest Battles of the Civil War alone. Every death is terrible, but if you're going to compare it to other Wars, the Iraq casualty numbers are absolutely remarkable. In fact, when placed beside other Wars in American History, almost all aspects of the Iraq War are remarkable by comparison; thus, it hardly seems fair to say that, for a war, Iraq is going 'badly.'

So maybe that's not what anti-war folks mean when they say "the War in Iraq is going badly." Oh, I know - maybe they mean that the state of affairs in Iraq is 'going badly' compared to the state of affairs it had prior to the U.S invasion under Saddam! So let's see, during his time as Iraqi 'president' Saddam Hussein killed an estimated 1 million of his own citizens - in peacetime. That puts Saddam's annual murder average roughly equal to the 3 year total of civilians killed (44,000) since the American invasion. And I'm not even taking into account the number of people killed by Saddam in the Iran-Iraq or Gulf Wars! Simply put, things have gotten much better and much safer in Iraq thanks to the U.S invasion. Even my rudimentary analysis above can prove that - and more detailed analyses make that difference even more drastic. Consequently, I sincerely hope that those opposed to the Iraq War are not arguing that it is 'going badly' in comparison with Saddam's Iraq; because that too would be a lie.

Now, maybe the anti-war crowd feels the "War in Iraq is going badly" because the reality on the ground in Iraq is not as good as the reality on the ground back here in the United States. Finally, a comparison that is true! Yes, Iraq is definitely 'doing badly' comparable to the United States; although, so is the rest of the world. Indeed, compared to the current state of things in the U.S, (be it, infrastructure, economic prosperity, etc.) every Nation in the world could be said to be 'doing badly' except for maybe Great Britain, Japan and Germany. Therefore, while this particular critique of the Iraq War may be valid, it does not particularly mean anything insofar as proving the War to be useless is concerned.

The bottom line is this: most people who flaunt the "War in Iraq is going badly" meme have, honestly, very little idea what they mean by that. Indeed, I'm guessing that if I asked 99% of the Iraq War's opponents "compared to what?" after they had uttered their signature slogan they would have absolutely no response. The other 1% would most likely be intellectually dishonest and try to claim that either (1.) 'The US is killing innocent Iraqi civilians' or (2.) 'The US is not doing a good job fighting the War' - both of which, as I pointed out above, make no logical sense. So next time someone tells you that "the War in Iraq is going badly" be sure and ask them just what exactly they're comparing that to.