Bravo! Finally someone besides Ron Paul points out that perpetual war is not a conservative value. To take your final paragraph to the heart of the neocon argument you should mention that besides the 47,000 US casualties, the Iraq conflict cost them 250,000+ casualties and countless deaths from disease and starvation due to us wrecking their infrastructire. Is this just a case of "neccessary sacrifices" we impose on them to deliver our ideological paradise to them?