During these three years, the last three years of the Iraq war, when we have lost 2,300 soldiers, America lost 120,000 of its citizens in automobile deaths, an average of 40,000 a year. These deaths included women and children and minorities, who were of course hardest hit by these auto accidents. One-hundred-and-twenty thousand. So we've lost 120,000 citizens in car crashes the last three years versus 2,300 in a ground war in Iraq. Forty-five thousand Americans died when they fell. This happens frequently. Americans fall down. Sometimes they fall down and injure themselves and sometimes when they injure themselves, the injuries result in death. (Again, women and minorities hardest hit.) Twenty-seven-thousand people in these past three years died from poisons. Twenty-seven thousand!
Twelve thousand Americans over the last three years drowned. So water and the wheel have killed more Americans than insurgent armor and fire in Iraq. We lost 2,400 in the war. We've lost 12,000 by drowning. It seems to me that on the third anniversary of the Iraq invasion, we might want to take a moment to congratulate all of the generals and the battle planners for one hell of an effective land battle when it comes to American casualties. This never seems to be put into perspective. We've had the eager count-up, the eager run-up to one thousand deaths, the media salivating. They couldn't wait to report that, then it was 1,500, then it was 2,000, and then the rate began to slow, and so now we have to focus on another action line, which is civil war.
"Civil war has broken out! We've lost control! The Iraqis can't handle it! This war is an utter disaster," and it's not, in so many ways. Plus we can't leave anyway and we're not going to leave.
