Philip R. O'Connor, writing in TCS Daily takes a look at numbers. This is a hard calculus because it involves the deaths of soldiers through American history. But it is something that needs to be understood as well.
In the full sweep of U.S history, from the commencement of the Revolution on Lexington Green in April 1775, until the sunny morning of September 11, 2001, our average daily sacrifice has been between 14 and 15 military fatalities (1,217,000 fatalities/83,461 days = 14.6/day). Since 9/11, the average daily sacrifice has been 1.7 per day (3200/1900=1.68).
From the Revolutionary War until the American entry into World War I, the average daily rate was about 11 per day (578,000/52,231=11.07). From World War I through the break up of the Soviet Union, the rate was over 16 per day (636,000/38,811=16.39). Or in our long running confrontation with Soviet communism following World War II until the collapse of the Soviet empire, the rate was over between 6 and 7 per day (112,400/16,892=6.65).
As things stand, the conflict with Islamic radicalism involves the lowest average daily military fatality rate of any long run national security era. It may worsen, it may improve. If Congress had been asked on September 12, 2001, to endorse a national defense posture against Islamic radicalism that traded up to 2 military fatalities per day over the subsequent five years in return for no additional homeland attacks, the deposing of terror friendly regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, the ending of Libya's nuclear program, what would they have done? Would Congress accept that bargain today?
Putting this in terms of hard numbers is not meant to make light of a single death, of course. But there is a cold, hard set of facts here that is being overlooked in the rush to withdraw from a central fight on the war on terror. Iraq has become that central front because the jihadis have chosen to make it so. O'Connor makes a point in his article that says it all: "Any leader disposed toward treating these decisions in exclusively personal terms is unfit for leadership."
This kind of article makes it even more obvious: We MUST support our troops!!