Every one of the 2,000 servicemen and -women who has died in Iraq is an enormous loss. Each will leave a gaping hole in many lives, those of family, friends and even entire communities.

And yet, as the media and the left launches into their “2,000 have died for oil” mantra, let us remember this grim milestone in a bit of perspective. We have, in the past, fought in other wars and conflicts to protect our own interests and those of the downtrodden and defenseless.

This is the number of casualties suffered by the United States for some of the major conflicts in our history.

Revolutionary War: 25,000
War of 1812: 20,000
Mexican-American War: 13,283
Civil War: 558,052
World War I: 116,708
World War 2: 407,316
Korean Conflict: 36,516
Vietnam War: 58,167

War in Iraq: 2,000

Also consider that the following deaths occur from other causes in the United States each year: (CDC)

Intentional Abortion: 1,293,000
Heart Disease: 696,947
Cancer: 557,271
Stroke: 162,672
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 124,816
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 106,742
Diabetes: 73,249
Influenza/Pneumonia: 65,681
Alzheimer’s disease: 58,866
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 40,974
Septicemia: 33,865
Murder: 16,110

So while we mourn our servicemen and women, and celebrate their heroism, and thank their families for their sacrifice, let’s keep this in perspective. More people (who have been born) are murdered in the United States in an average two month period, than members of our armed forces have died in Iraq since the conflict began. And over four times as many people die every month in accidents in the United States than have died in combat in Iraq.

Go ahead Cindy, chain yourself to that fence. But I am going to take this tragic milestone as a reminder to appreciate the sacrifice of the men and women who have given their lives so that I can sleep in peace at night, and so that many Iraqis have been able to taste freedom rather than live in daily fear of the evil regime that controlled their country.

War is horrible. But sometimes war is inevitable and necessary because there are evil men, and choosing not to fight becomes more tragic than stepping up and defending yourself and those who need defending.

Rants and memorials: Wake Up Baltimore, Philip Alex, WordPress (and here), Ian, Say Anything, Mind in Qatar, Sister Toldjah, Knight’s Blog, Lean Left, Hullabaloo, Kevin Drum, Oliver Willis, Sortapundit, California Conservative.

Tomorrow, BetterJustice.com is launching ads supporting Bush, but saying that “even the best leaders make mistakes.” The ad urges the withdrawal of the Miers nomination.

Their page titled “What Conservatives Are Saying” includes quotes from Gary Bauer, Bill Bennett, Robert Bork, David Brooks, Mona Charen, Linda Chavez, Ann Coulter, David Frum, John Fund, Jonah Goldberg, Laura Ingraham, Charles Krauthammer, Bill Kristol, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Trent Lott, Peggy Noonan, Phyllis Schlafly and George Will.

Somewhat related, Lowell Brown comments on the Anti-Miers Unholy Alliance here.

This Swedish train gets 2.5 miles per cow. Seriously.

Illegal aliens in Massachusetts want in-state tuition breaks reserved for, shockingly, only legal residents. The Boston Herald spins it a bit differently.

Today in the State House, dozens of children of undocumented Brazilians will rally for a bill they say could make their dreams of going to college a reality.

These students have to pay out-of-state tuition because of their immigration status, even though they have spent many years in the state. The difference in tuitions can be in the thousands of dollars and can put college out of reach.

“We have kids who go to school in the country from the first grade to high school, but when they’re ready to go to college, they can’t because it is too expensive to pay out-of-state tuition,'’ said Fausto Da Rocha, director of the Brazilian Immigration Center in Randolph.

How shockingly unfair.

Those who have followed the rules, waited in line, and come to this great country using the legal procedures put in place to facilitate such an opportunity, and those of us privileged enough to have been born here, have paid for the children of illegal aliens to go to school for twelve years for free. And now they are complaining that they’re not getting a cheap college education on the backs of these same law abiding taxpayers.

And it’s all just “because of their immigration status…” Amazing.

So today at the State House we will have many illegals rallying. Sounds like someone ought to call law enforcement and give ‘em a heads up.

UPDATE: Looks Jay Tea already has done his civic duty. 1-866-DHS-2-ICE.

In the wake of the new accusations about George Galloway lying to Congress, I thought I would put up a link to the Al Mada list of those who received vouchers from Iraq’s Oil for Food program. There are 270 names and entities on the list, including Galloway’s.

Here is a brief overview, from MEMRI, describing how it all worked.

How It Worked: The Voucher Transactions Method

In a subsequent article, Al-Mada provides details on the allocation and sale of oil vouchers. In general, the vouchers were given either as gifts or as payment for goods imported into Iraq in violation of the U.N. sanctions. The voucher holder would normally tender the voucher to any one of the specialized companies operating in the United Arab Emirates for a commission which initially ranged from $0.25 to $0.30 per barrel, though it may have declined in later years to as little as $0.10 or even $0.05 per barrel because of oil surplus on the market. [7] In other words, a voucher for 1 million barrels would have translated into a quick profit of $250,000-300,000 on the high side and $50,000-100,000 on the low side – all paid in cash. According to Al-Mada, Jordan will seek to tax the illicit profits of citizens who benefited from the sale of the vouchers.

One of the common arguments by recipients of vouchers was that the vouchers paid for goods provided in the framework of the U.N.-administered Oil for Food program. However, under the Memorandum of Understanding governing the program, oil allocations were intended for “end users,” meaning those with refineries. Most of the voucher recipients would be considered “non-end users.” Moreover, if vouchers were used to pay for goods, it would suggest that these were not authorized by the program and should be considered illicit since all contracts approved by the U.N. were reimbursed from the trust account where the oil revenues were kept, at a French bank, at Iraq’s insistence. According to the United Nations: “The oil buyer had to pay the price approved by the Security Council Sanctions Committee into a U.N. escrow account, and the U.N. had to verify that the goods purchased by Iraq were indeed those allowed under the program. But the U.N. had no way of knowing what other transactions might be going on directly between the Iraqi government and the buyers and sellers.” [8]

Captain Ed:

Galloway fell into the most basic of prosecutorial traps: find someone who loves to talk, and give him enough rope and time with which to hang himself.

Hinderaker got a chuckle out of me with his response:

Galloway, of course, denies receiving any money from Saddam; he claims to have supported the tyrant for free.

UPDATE: Galloway says “put up or shut up.”

But Mr Galloway repeated denials that he had ever received any oil cash, and told Mr Coleman to “put up or shut up” by either bringing a prosecution or dropping the allegations.

The Bethnal Green and Bow MP accused Mr Coleman of orchestrating a “sneak revenge attack” motivated by a desire to avenge his “humiliation” at the hearing in May.

“I am demanding prosecution, I am begging for prosecution,” Mr Galloway told Sky News. “I am saying if I have lied under oath in front of the Senate, that’s a criminal offence.

“Charge me and I will head for the airport right now and face them down in court as I faced them down in the Senate room.

On target, Os Guinness has some excellent observations about the causes and miscues regarding evil in our world.

From a recent interview with Jen Waters of the Washington Times (via the Pearcey Report)…

More recently, we have a generation of postmodernism, so that in some circles there is the bizarre idea that it’s worse to judge evil than it is to do evil.

Sounds just like many liberal attitudes infecting the U.S. media.

Guinness goes on to say …

In some circles today, there is almost a litany that religion is the problem. Gore Vidal argued at Harvard in 1992 “the great unmentionable evil at the heart of our culture is monotheism.” Many said the same after 9/11. As Christopher Hitchens put it, “the real axis of evil” is not Iran, Iraq and North Korea, but Judaism, the Christian faith and Islam. This is simply factually wrong. On the one hand, in the last century alone more people were killed by secularist regimes, led by secularist intellectuals, and in the name of secularist ideologies than in all the Western persecutions combined. In fact, atheistic communism killed more than 100 million people alone, more than all the persecutions in Western history combined. On the other hand, monotheism is the most innovative and influential belief in all human history — for example, its significance for the rise of science and human rights.

This idea that religion is the problem seems to be very trendy of late. My observation has been that there are only two religions that are targeted as problems; Christianity and Judaism. Given my understanding of the Bible it would be consistent that those two faiths would be the subject of attack, which further underscores the truth residing in its pages.

Os Guinness has a new book on the subject of evil called, “Unspeakable: Facing Up to Evil in an Age of Genocide and Terror.” The always insightful Guinness should make this book worth reading.

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Incidentally, lots of bloggers are taking note of the launch of the new Pearcey report, by Rick and Nancy Pearcey, including Mark Tapscott, Adrian Warnock, Touchstone Mag, Magic Stats, A-Team, Stones Cry Out, Writing Right, doulos2k and others.

Here is a seriously long but interesting article by Hewitt, and subsequent parsing and rebutting by Zummo. (H/T: Bainbridge)

I’m not even going to try to summarize. Hewitt is defending Miers’ nomination, Zummo at ConfirmThem thinks his arguments don’t hold water.

UPDATE: Patterico also disagrees with Hugh.