William F. Buckley Jr. on Iraq on National Review Online

William F. Buckley Jr. on Iraq on National Review Online: "
May 06, 2005, 12:40 p.m.

Exiting Iraq
At what point is our job done?

It is time to ponder the strategic impact of the casualty figures. Those that are relevant to this analysis are widely familiar. The U.S. has lost approximately 1,500 dead in military action and 10,000 wounded, and we continue to lose, dead, about 50 soldiers every month. The Iraqis (using loose counts) die and are wounded at about ten times the U.S. rate. Moreover, the Iraqi deaths have increased substantially since the national election in January.

We know philosophically that all deaths should be counted equally, since we are all God’s children. But it isn’t surprising that U.S. concern should focus on deaths of our own troops, with concern for Iraqi casualties mostly as a building block of strategic reckoning. It may sound inhuman, but it is very human to care about our own on the battlefield. And doing so sharpens the strategic picture for us. We are entitled to say to ourselves: If the bloodletting is to go on, it can do so without our involvement in it."