The problem in Iraq, raised by the Chinook missile, derives from 500,000 Iraqis trained by Saddam to fire missiles. Not by any means all of them are proficient at it, and the great majority would not want to fire them against Americans. But the diehards are numerous enough to threaten targets, whether American or native. Baghdad is unsafe for Iraqi patriots who are willing to undertake civic responsibilities. And low-flying aircraft are unsafe -- the Chinooks are now flying only at night. The Baghdad airport, though rebuilt, is closed to most commercial traffic. The Sunni triangle is a hotbed. Tranquillity will come only after major developments, among them the training of a new Iraqi army and a consolidation of a plausible Iraqi government that will engender loyalty from Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.
That clearly takes time. However dramatic the loss of the helicopter, and the loss every day of American lives, there is no alternative but to look at the figures in perspective. Our casualties since the beginning of the war have reached 400. Last year, 16,000 Americans were murdered within the boundaries of the United States. That same year, 43,000 Americans were killed in automobile accidents.
If all surveillance of the Iraqi theater were to end today, and begin again when Iraq is a settled state, governed by its own people making their way toward freedom, it is inconceivable that the losses sustained during the hiatus would appear to Americans as disproportionate to the ends achieved. What's needed is to nurture that moral perspective that the idiot children of Fallujah were deprived of.