RUSH: Men and women are “dying in Iraq,” and this is unspeakable! This is intolerable; we can’t have this, even though in war (may I speak brutally and bluntly?) In war, death happens. It’s, in fact, one of the ways in which you define who wins! There is a statistical expectation that when you get in a car, you could be in an accident and you could die, but by definition, the automobile was not invented so as to be able to limit the population by assuring that X numbers of thousands of citizens every year will be wiped out using them! I get so confused and curious about this preoccupation with death in a war, when there is no similar preoccupation with it, say, in abortion. There’s no similar preoccupation with death in these automobile accidents. We don’t take steps to ban some of the equipment that we have that leads to lots and lots and lots of death. Somehow, in this case, whatever number of deaths there are is intolerable! It’s too many. 
But it’s a war, and the people who — God bless them; it’s why we revere them so — volunteer and sign up know full well what they’re getting into, which is why some of us in this country genuinely do have awe and admiration and respect plus support for the troops, and thus knowing full well what they are getting into, we support their mission because we know what their mission is. Do you think the troops are in this on to lose? You think people sign up for one of the branches of the military to lose, to be sent off to some foreign place and to lose? They want to win! The American people want to win. Somehow the Manhattan-DC-Boston axis, this corridor of media, has itself convinced that the troops think they can’t win and that the American people don’t want to win and that we’ve gotta get out. It’s a huge disconnect. I want to ask you to play a little game here, folks, and this will give you some indication how you have been manipulated by the Drive-By Media; how much media manipulation has clouded your judgment.
I want to ask you a single question in this little test, and in your minds, you have to give an instant response, and you have to be honest with yourself after you give that response as I tell you what your response means. You cannot think about it, and when I ask you this question go, “Uhhhhh.” An instant reaction is what I need, if you are to properly play along with this test and illustration. No thinking. No Googling. No talking it over with friends. No cheat sheets. Your instant response will tell you, and only you, if you are being manipulated and how much that manipulation is affecting your judgment. Now, you’ve gotta do this with no distractions. If you’re driving, pull over. Well, that’s not practical, but if you’re driving, it’s going to be tough because you’ve gotta be focused on this. No coffee. No smoking. No doodling while this is happening!
Remember, I’m going to ask a single question. You will answer with an instant response. There’s no right or wrong here, just an instant answer. Don’t worry about telling me what you think — because I’m not going to be able to hear you and I can’t read your minds. Don’t worry about what I think. This is not a polling question where you have to worry about what the pollster is going to think of you. You’re thinking the answer. Nobody will even know what you’re thinking unless you blurt it out and tell somebody. So don’t worry about what somebody is going to think of you after you answer the question. Just respond in your mind instantly. No thinking. Here we go: five, four, three, two, one, here’s the question: “How many of our troops died in Iraq last year.” What is your answer right now? What’s on your mind? Keep that answer in your mind. Don’t start thinking about it. Don’t recall what you’ve read. It’s what’s in your head. We’re talking about manipulation and how anybody and all of us can be manipulated.
Now, let’s interpret your answer. If you answered less than 500 deaths in Iraq, troop deaths in Iraq, last year, you have not been manipulated — and you are healthy, and you’re in good shape. If your answer to the question, “How many of our troops died in Iraq last year?” is more than one thousand, you have been manipulated. You have bought into it hook, line and sinker. If you answered more than 2,000, you have not just been manipulated; you have been programmed! You have been co-opted. Your mind is not yours anymore. It belongs to the Drive-By Media. If you answered more than 3,000 deaths, troop deaths, in Iraq last year, you are not just manipulated or seriously programmed. You have been brainwashed, and you are hopeless!
If you answered more than 4,000 troop deaths last year in Iraq, you probably subscribe to the New York Times, and watch a combination of CNN, NBC, ABC and CBS, and you have gone beyond being brainwashed; you are the enemy. “How many troop fatalities did we have in 2006,” last year? The correct answer is: 821. Eight hundred twenty-one of our bravest gave their lives in Iraq during the calendar year 2006. Any answer between 800 and 850 tells you that you have followed the news; you’ve been informed by the news and not manipulated by the liberal media, and you would probably be on the EIB Institute Dean list if we had one. Eight hundred twenty-one. Now, 821, depending how you look at it, “Yeah, it’s a pretty big number,” but in a war? In a year? Eight hundred twenty-one in a year, and for this we are roiling the country with stupid debates over resolutions to engender defeat, in a war?
We lose more than this in a training exercise for World War II D-Day invasion or the Battle of the Bulge — and you veterans of the greatest generation know exactly of what I speak. Eight hundred twenty-one! Senator Hagel is beside himself, as are all the liberals, and most of the Democrats. Eight hundred twenty-one! The source for this, by the way, is a website Icasualties.org.oif — and if you look at it, they classify deaths in five periods every year. “Period five deaths were 915 from December 15th of ’05 to January 21 of ’07. ” If you take out the late ’05 deaths and the January ’07 deaths, you are left with 821 in calendar year 2006. Eight hundred twenty-one troop deaths. For this, we’re going through all of this rigmarole in the United States Senate. For this we’re talking about cutting off the funding of the troops! The three-year total is just over 3,000, so the number of US deaths must be declining, because it takes over a thousand a year to total more than 3,000, and yet last year: 821.
Now, my point is not to diminish the 821. My point here is to, A, illustrate for you how you may be in the process of being brainwashed, propagandized or manipulated by the Drive-By Media who want you to believe that many are dying every day! The second thing is to try to put some perspective on all this with ways in which Americans die while not at war. Wouldn’t you say that if 821 Americans out of a troop force of 150,000 died in one year (I haven’t worked up the percentages on this) but you might have a better chance at living, going to war than living in certain cities where the crime rate is out of control! I put this in context because the purpose of this war is to protect US national security. This is not just about “stabilizing” Iraq. This is about protecting us and defeating an enemy that is scattered around the globe — and somehow, that’s irrelevant.
That doesn’t matter. We’ve got to abandon that. We’ve got to bring the troops home so no more of them die
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