Iraq by the numbers

There are a number of things about which Walt should have said more [or anything at all! Ed.] in 2011. One of them was the American withdrawal from Iraq. Here, courtesy of Private Eye, the Economist and President O'Bama hisseff, are some interesting numbers.

1,500,000 - Number of Americans who served in the US military in the late unpleasantness, according to the President's homecoming speech. (I couldn't very well call it a victory speech, could I.)
30,000 - Number of American servicemen and servicewomen wounded in Iraq. Same source.
4,474 - Number of Americans killed in Iraq.
2,977 - Number of people -- mostly Americans -- killed in the 9/11 attacks.

Kind of makes you think, doesn't it. But I have one more number for you.

1 (one) - Number of prominent politicians who opposed America's invasion of Iraq from the getgo.

That would be Ron Paul: obstetrician, numismatist and hater of the Fed and the UN. He opposed the Iraq war from Day One, and now calls for America to shun expensive foreign entanglements that make the rest of the world resent it. So says the Economist in its "Lexington" column dated tomorrow. [Trust Walt to be a step ahead of the media...occasionally. Ed.]

Here's a quote from Congressman Paul's website:

If you hit someone and kill their family, they will hate you and probably hit you back in the future. That’s what blowback is all about. It seems like such a simple concept, but many of Ron Paul’s opponents for the Presidency vehemently denied its validity.

They proclaim that what our military does abroad has no effect on how the citizens of the world feel towards us. The 9/11 terrorists hated our wealth and freedom so intensely that they sacrificed their lives to prove it? (Of course, our government bombing their countries, propping up their dictators and supplying their enemies with money and weapons had nothing to do with it…)

Instead of securing our borders, we’ve been planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression. Our military is spread thin all across the planet, yet we remain involved in dangerous power plays that unnecessarily put the lives of our soldiers at risk. And we brazenly squandered the wealth of our nation as if there were no tomorrow.

It doesn’t make any sense unless you consider increasing the profits of the military-industrial complex to be in the “national interest”, no matter what the cost to the rest of us may be.

Indeed. Ron Paul is campaigning for liberty, prosperity and peace. But do Americans really want liberty, prosperity and peace? We'll find out, starting this coming Tuesday.