War - how bad it really is?

As you all know by now, 4000th soldier was killed on Sunday. That's 4000 young men have met their untimely death during the now 5 years of war. Can you imagine 4000 coffins in a row somewhere? In order to prevent further casualties the only sensible option is to pull out. War, what is it good for? For security, obviously. By fighting all those militant types in some desert country we keep the fight off our very own green lawn. And that, my friends, is something one can not deny. In other words, their sacrifices keep us safe.

How great are the costs anyway? When one starts to think about, then it seems not really significant. Though every single life is valuable and I know what misery and sadness accompany death, if one looks at it from a larger perspective, there really is no major effect. Do you know how many people get hurt in normal everyday traffic? There were 271 017 casualties reported in 2005 in the UK alone. That is about 743 casualties every single day. Yet nobody advocates banning cars. Now think about it. It is a big sacrifice to the individual who has to cope with his own death, or the loss of a loved one, but is it really that much to ask from the general society? If we are not ready to contribute that to our security, then who is supposed to do it for us?



PS.
This post is about whether it is sensible to withdraw our forces from Iraq right now. This post is NOT about whether we should have been there in the first place.