> Would we really base the decision to pull out just on how many of *us* are dying?

The perception of many, including Osama bin Laden, is that we do exactly that. The following is a quote from The Atlantic Monthly, January 2002.


Here is how bin Laden once addressed U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry, in his 1996 "Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places":

Where was this courage of yours when the explosion in Beirut took place in 1983 ... You were transformed into scattered bits and pieces at that time; 241 soldiers were killed, most of them Marines. And where was this courage of yours when two explosions made you leave Aden in less than twenty-four hours! ... you moved tens of thousands of international forces, including twenty-eight thousand American soldiers, into Somalia. However, when tens of your soldiers were killed in minor battles and one American pilot was dragged in the streets of Mogadishu, you left the area in disappointment, humiliation, and defeat, your dead with you ... It was a pleasure for the heart of every Muslim and a remedy to the chests of believing nations to see you defeated in the three Islamic cities of Beirut, Aden, and Mogadishu.