War in Iraq; Status quo at home; Won't work.

There is a tendency to downplay the teaching of military history - perhaps in the hope that if we don't teach about war, it will go away. But military history is important.

There is only one way to make war. You have to hurt somebody. If war is worth fighting in the first place, then it is worth winning. We cannot win unless we fight; if we fight, our soldiers will die. If more of the enemy dies, then we will win. It has nothing to do with governments or what is barbaric and what is civilized. If our soldiers don't fight and die, if we don't make the enemy quit by destroying their will to fight and by destroying their army, then the only other choice is to walk away.

One percent of the American population died during the American Revolution. If we were to lose one percent of our population today, the toll would be more than 3 million dead. Estimates of battle deaths:

Revolutionary War: 4,400
Civil War combined Union and Confederate: 204,000
WW I: 116,000
WW II: 410,000
Viet Nam: 50,000
Iraq: 1800+

What is temporarily changing Iraq's government worth?

Our Constitution was adopted by a convention of the States on September 17, 1787, and subsequently was ratified by:

Delaware, December 7, 1787;
Pennsylvania, December 12, 1787;
New Jersey, December 18, 1787;
Georgia, January 2, 1788;
Connecticut, January 9, 1788;
Massachusetts, February 6, 1788;
Maryland, April 28, 1788;
South Carolina, May 23, 1788;
New Hampshire, June 21, 1788.
Ratification was completed on June 21, 1788.
Subsequent ratifications:
Virginia, June 25, 1788;
New York, July 26, 1788;
North Carolina, November 21, 1789;
Rhode Island, May 29, 1790; and
Vermont, January 10, 1791.

During that time we were civilized enough to live together in peace.

And now we expect Iraq to do in a few months what it took us years to do. Their history shows they are not civilized enough to live together in peace.

We are wasting our time and the lives of our military....