Of course, this forces the anti-war politicians to ignore the sacrifice that Iraqi civilians endure as targets of our enemies--a death toll the anti-war legion trumpets as proof of the futility of fighting.
But most importantly, the charge that Americans fight and die while Iraqis do not is simply a lie at worst or ignorant at best. The headline screams that the American death toll in March is "nearly twice" the Iraqi military's toll but that is terribly misleading. The article is factual enough:
The Associated Press count of U.S. military deaths for the month was 81, including a soldier who died from non-combat causes Saturday. Figures compiled from officials in the Iraqi ministries of Defense, Health and Interior showed the Iraqi military toll was 44. The Iraqi figures showed that 165 Iraqi police were killed in March. Many of the police serve in paramilitary units.
So there you go. Eighty-one American soldiers, 44 Iraqi military personnel, and 165 Iraqi police died in March fighting the enemy. The Iraqi security forces lost 2-1/2 times as many troops as we lost.
And the civilians of course (though some portion of that represents insurgent and terrorist enemies):
Additionally, the Iraqi ministry figures listed 1,872 Iraqi civilian deaths for the month, about 300 more than the AP tabulation, which is mainly gathered from daily police reports nationwide.
The civilian death toll for the month was down significantly from 2,172 in December, the highest month casualty figure since the AP began keeping records of civilian deaths in April 2005.
However, the number of civilians killed in March was in the same range as for the first two months of this year; 1,604 in January and 1,552 in February, according to the AP count.
The anti-war politicians must sacrifice the truth to charge the Iraqis are not fighting and dying at our side to defeat enemies who sacrifice children, slaughter innocents, behead, and use poison gas.
The Iraqis are sacrificing to win a future for themselves. We must not abandon them.
And remember, as long as we are fighting the enemy over there, Iraqis are fighting at our side. Who would fight at our side here against the jihadis?
