The War on Jihadism

We call this war "The War on Terrorism" but it's not a war against generic terrorism. The only non-Islamic terrorists that we have had to deal with in the USA uptil now have been home-grown nuts like the Unibomber and McVeigh. We don't have to fight a war against lone loons but we do have to fight a war against fanatical Islamic Jihadists. So, from now on I will be referring to our current war as "The War on Jihadism" not as the "The War on Terrorism."

Yesterday the Pentagon announced that there have now been 2,500 American casualties in Iraq - combat deaths and 528 from non-combat operations over the 3+ years of the war. Those deaths are the price we pay to rid ourselves of the greatest threat to western civilization since Nazism and Communism.

Last Wednesday, Fits, posted on his blog, "Shooting the Messenger," an article from the Marine Corps News, "Remembering the Battle of Belleau Wood."

Between June 1 and June 26 in 1918, 2,289 American troops (including over 1,900 Marines) lost their lives at Belleau Wood - in just one battle lasting 3+ weeks not 3+ years.

Here is a list of American casualties in all of our wars.

American Revolution (1775–1783) 4,435

War of 1812 (1812–1815) 2,260

Indian Wars (approx. 1817–1898) 1,000

Mexican War (1846–1848) 1,733
Other deaths in service (nontheater) 11,550

Civil War (1861–1865) (Union) 140,414
Other deaths in service (nontheater) (Union) 224,097

Battle deaths (Conf.) 74,524
Other deaths in service (nontheater) (Conf.) 59,2972

Spanish-American War (1898–1902) 385
Other deaths in service (nontheater) 2,061

World War I (1917–1918) 53,402
Other deaths in service (nontheater) 63,114

World War II (1940–1945) 291,557
Other deaths in service (nontheater) 113,842

Korean War (1950–1953) 33,741
Other deaths in service (theater) 2,827
Other deaths in service (nontheater) 17,730

Vietnam War (1964–1975) 47,410
Other deaths in service (theater) 10,789
Other deaths in service (nontheater) 32,000

Gulf War (1990–1991) 147
Other deaths in service (theater) 382
Other deaths in service (nontheater) 1,565

America's Wars Total 651,008
Other deaths in service (theater) 13,998
Other deaths in service (nontheater) 525,256

Last Wednesday Condi Rice addressed the Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting:

We in America are blessed with lives of tremendous liberty: the freedom to govern ourselves and elect our leaders; the freedom to own property; the freedom to educate our children, our boys and our girls; and of course the freedom to think as we please and to worship as we wish. America embodies these liberties but America does not own these liberties. We stand for ideals that are greater than ourselves and we go into the world not to plunder but to protect, not to subjugate but to liberate, not as masters of others but as servants of freedom.

Our world needs America's leadership now more than ever.

You can read her whole speech here.