Kamikaze Charge?

Cavalry Charge replies to the "Horror in Iraq" entry below by characterizing it as taking a stance of "appeasement."

We are in Iraq for the noble purpose of freeing millions of people from dictatorship, as well as to make America more safe and secure. Leaving before we finish the job does not serve either purpose.

My blog took no issue with the nobility of the purpose of fighting for democracy in Iraq. The question is: what cost is acceptable? If tomorrow, Iraq somehow rose up and killed every soldier we have in the country, should we simply gather up another 130,000 young men and ship them off to try to create a Middle Eastern democracy? We have to consider the human cost of this experiment. When ideological hard-line hawks act as if this is not an issue, as if no number of American dead could possibly tip the scales, as if there are no scales to be tipped, they start to sound like Muslim extremists sending young suicide bombers off to die for their cause.

Note that I do not think it is time to pull out of Iraq. The point of the post below was to ask a rhetorical hard question... how many American lives are we willing to trade for a Middle Eastern democracy? Cavalry Charge appears to argue that the answer is this.