A Sober Accounting on the Anniversary of 9/11

U.S. Dead	Date	Country	Event
17	4/18/1983	Lebanon	Beirut U.S. Embassy bombing
241	10/23/1983	Lebanon	Beirut Marine barracks bombing
2	9/20/1984	Lebanon	Beirut U.S. embassy annex bombing
1	6/14/1985	Lebanon	TWA 847 hijacking
1	10/7/1985	Egypt	Achille Lauro hijacking
4	4/2/1986	Greece	TWA 840 hijacking
2	4/5/1986	West Germany	Berlin disco bombing
2	9/5/1986	Pakistan	Pan Am 73 hijacking
178	12/21/1988	Scotland	Lockerbie Pan Am 103 bombing
294	1990-1991	Kuwait and Iraq	Gulf War
3	1/25/1993	United States	CIA headquarters shootings
6	2/26/1993	United States	World Trade Center bombing
18	10/3-10/4/1993	Somalia	Battle of Mogadishu
2	3/8/1995	Pakistan	Karachi shootings
19	6/25/1996	Saudi Arabia	Khobar Tower bombings
12	8/7/1998	Kenya & Tanzania	U.S. embassy bombings
17	10/12/2000	Yemen	USS Cole bombing
2,977	9/11/2001	United States	WTC and Pentagon attack
2,344	2001-2014	Afghanistan	Operation Enduring Freedom
1	2/1/2002	Pakistan	Pearl beheading
17	10/2002	United States	DC Beltway sniper
7	10/12/2002	Indonesia	Bali bombings
4,486	2003-2012	Iraq	Operation Iraqi Freedom
3	10/15/2003	Gaza	U.S. diplomat convoy blast
1	5/29/2004	Saudi Arabia	Khobar massacre
1	1/1/2008	Sudan	Granville assassination
13	11/5/2009	United States	Fort Hood shootings
4	9/11/2012	Lybya	Benghazi U.S. consulate attack
4	4/15/2013	United States	Boston marathon bombing
2	8/19-9/2/2014	Syria and Iraq	ISIL beheadings
10,679	Total

That's a long list, and one could argue about a couple of entries on it, but it also could be much longer. Our allies lost people too. The count of enemy dead is even higher.

I've heard Senator John McCain saying in the last couple of days that we could have avoided the resurgence of ISIL by leaving a sizable contingent of U.S. troops in Iraq. But we had 54 killed there in 2011, and we could have lost that many again in each of 2012, 2013, and 2014. We've lost 43 troops so far this year in Afghanistan.

Is the counter-terrorism push against ISIL the beginning of another war? I imagine they think it is, and will be looking to hit us back in retaliation for these bomb strikes. Every j.v. team wants to play varsity. But, really, it's just the same war. You can go to Reason, and watch each of the last four U.S. Presidents announce that we're bombing Iraq.

The burden of sacrifice is borne by so few. I have a cousin who graduated from West Point in 2001 and retired after 10 years of service in 2011, which is already 3 years ago. Another cousin's husband is still in service after over a decade.