I agree that any non combatant death is one too many and that deaths are lamentable. For many of those Iraqis killed by this war it was oinservice to their country and not necessarily to Saddam. They may have died from a sense of duty and nothing more. Or they had been sold a bill of goods by Saddam and Muslim fakers and died for 100 hundred virgins and a sweet life here after.

But there is one perspective we are forgetting. In the battle of Iwo Jimo 350 US Marines of Easy Co. went up a hill, fighting all the way, raised a flag, and ony 50 lived to board ship after the fight.

The Battle of the Bulge cost 19,000 Casualties.

These two battles were straight up fights. No WMDs were used, just men with guns and tanks. It is because of staggering loses like these that Harry Truman decided to use atomic bombs to put the end to the conflict completely. That is a moralistic debate that can't be won by either side I don't believe. And even now, nearly sixty years later I am chilled by the thought of that war. But from a convential wars stand point and tallied in loss of life, combatant and civilian,   the War in Iraq is comparitivly low. Certainly nowheres near that of Dresden or The Battle of Britain or Gettysburg or Antietam or Fredericksburg.

Don