What do you say to conservatives

[mokawanis]

who maintain the war is going well because "after all, we've only lost 2,000 in Iraq. Hell, in WW 2 we lost that many in a day."?

[elehhhhna]

1. I say "When ya shipping out?"

[TallahasseeGrannie]

2. You say

"oh, yeah, those were the good old days for sure!"

Then you spit on the floor and leave.

[Straight Shooter]

3. I say, "It took 4 years in Vietnam to reach that death toll." n/t

[T Wolf]

4. Four things...

One - even one life lost for a lie is too damn much.

Two - compare this to the earliest years of US involvement in Vietnam (we are ahead of that curve).

Three - we are not fighting a world power with real weapons and armies, etc., but a civilian resistance.

Four - tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis have also been killed in our attempt to "liberate" them.

[Inland]

5. And WWII was worth it. This isn't.

considering Hitler, Tojo, fascism taking over four continents, and considering WE WON.

There isn't anything being accomplished in Iraq that's worth ONE american life. Nothing.

[coyotespaw]

6. I find a swift kick to the groin says it all! eom

[Jed Dilligan]

7. I'd say

We could still lose that many in a day, any day. The insurgency's capabilities are broadening.

[bigbrother05]

8. Arguing with a fool is bad for the brain,

That said there is no comparision, we invaded a souverign country, with no just cause. Hitler did the same thing, and thats why we were there.

[displacedtexan]

9. I say...

"Gee, I used to think you were really smart."

I also have a shit-eating grin on my face, and I play the Repuke "Just kidding" game.

I know, I'm shameless. But it's oh, so much fun.

[Jacobin]

10. I ask them when they or their son plans to enlist

Its going very well, its a noble cause, most Iraqis want us there to help them with their Jeffersonian Democracy, its safe, the benefits are good, you aren't likely to be hurt or killed and you can be a hero and a patriot while 'protecting our freedoms'(tm)

they just kinda grin and shuffle off.

[txaslftist]

11. Ummm. In WWII we were fighting against national powers.

Right now we are fighting against an insurgency. Technically, we aren't really at war. We're "reconstructing" after victory. We never lost near what we are losing now during the reconstruction of Germany and Japan.

Also, our casualty rate is much higher than 2,000. It is about ten times as much, because it includes injured persons.

[PurityOfEssence]

12. Ask them to name how many days that happened

The only one I can think of is Pearl Harbor. Less were lost on D-Day, but with the other actions in Italy and the Pacific on that day, the number was probably above 2,000. There were probably other days, but certainly not very many.

World War 2 was the bloodiest and most violent episode in human history; is anything that comes short of that just some kind of picnic? It's like Novak downplaying unemployment in his hometown because it's not as bad as at the height of the Great Depression.

Remind them that battlefield medicine is MUCH better than in World War 2, but that gives us a new problem: thousands of disfigured and disabled veterans. If that doesn't matter to them, remind them how EXPENSIVE these shattered people will be to us all.

We lost somewhere around 408,000 killed in World War 2; that's roughly 279 a day. That's horrible, yes, but not 2,000.

Remember, too: for every dead American, there were approximately 65 dead Soviets.

[Zynx]

13. This is not WWII and Bush is not FDR.

WWII was a war against two of the greatest industrial powers on the face of the earth with, between them, over 10 million men under arms at virtually any given point. This is a war against one of the smallest and poorest countries in the world and even though we are two and a half years into it there is no end in sight. In WWII, two and a half years into it we had invaded Normandy and had the Japanese and Nazis on the run with victory clearly in sight.