I think Kerry says it's 90% American, casualties and $$.Surely Gen. George S. Patton was right: in war, the only casualties worth bragging about are those inflicted on the enemy.
But if friendly casualties there must be, there is something to be said for leading. America led the coalition, and in doing so it put its own troops in the forefront of the battle. In a true "coalition of the bribed and coerced," the dominant actor would exploit its allies by placing their troops in the most dangerous positions. Which is, according to the History Channel special on Sparta of a year ago or so, exactly what the Spartans used to do. Sparta would use its allies as "cannon fodder" against its main opponent, and use its own troops to hack up the weaker allies of that main opponent.
Kerry prattles about getting important "allies" to "help" - but in fact his proposal is to retroactively repeat the mistake of the Gulf War, that of allowing the coalition to define the mission. Bush's position is that "the mission must define the coalition" - which is simply another way of saying that America must lead if America's interests (meaning a democratic Iraq) are to prevail.
The price of getting "help" which Bush couldn't get is only giving up American control of the mission - IOW, surrender by another name. Lt. John Kerry advocated surrender by another name in 1971, and he advocates surrender by another name now. He is, was, and will be a Quisling.
All I need to know about life, I learned from Gen. George Patton...
I would say in this war, the casualties are about 90% bad guys and terrorists. Let's see if we can't get that number up a little higher...