The point is that our land forces are much smaller than they were in WW2 or Korea or Nam. So 80 dead a month is significant. Especially when combined with the wounded which run into the hundreds per month. It takes a lot of time and money to train one Soldier or Marine, it takes 1 hour to train a terrorist to fire an RPG or AK or pull a string.
They have a billion to recruit from and they don't have to pay them squat.
Now you say:
There are 40 murders a month in Los Angeles and 50 a month in New York, alone. Why would Baghdad be any different?
There are 14 million people in Los Angeles and New York, not the 140,000 American troops in Iraq. If we had 5 or 9 million troops in Iraq then our casualties would be on the same order as crime in these cities.
With KIA and WIA we are losing at the very least 200 a month. As our casualties climb our President's rating falls. Bush's 37 percent overall approval rating was two percentage points below his ranking in an October survey. Public opinion effects recruiting and recruiting is the only way to replace lost troops in a volunteer military. This is a war of attrition and it should not be.
Finally yes, your chances are much greater of getting killed in Iraq than staying home. 50 people in a population of 9 million is much smaller percentage than 80 people out of 140,000.
We need to use our advanced air power and other technological advantages as well as tactics. Instead we are being handcuffed by Vietnam type rules of engagement and a kinder gentler compassionate PC war fighting mentality.
No, the loss rate per 100,000 pop in the US armed forces, and in the US male civilian population age 17 to 39, is the same. Not just on smaller pop, per 100,000.
Few of our wounded are lost to us. Most just return to duty. The force involved is much larger than that deployed at any one time, because they rotate through the theater. We can sustain this rate of casualties indefinitely. More, we can sustain this rate of casualties indefinitely without even noticing.
The terrorists most certainly do have to pay their men. They offer large cash incentives to conduct attacks and few would occur in Iraq without it. Nor do they have a billion to recruit from. Most Muslims are their enemies, as for example most of the population of Iraq.
I'm not suggesting kinder gentler anything, but you are the one who seems to think a hangnail is a ruinous rate of losses. We won wars in the past not merely through tech or razzle dazzle, but because we were tough enough as a nation to shrug off modest loss rates. We then inflicted vastly higher loss rates on our enemies. And we are not a small nation. Nobody can lose 20 to 1 against us and keep it up.
As for Bush, he isn't up for re-election, so the issue is moot. Besides, winning the war is a much bigger concern than the interest of one politician, or of one political party. You do not help by pretending continued lopsided success without any appreciable losses, is some sort of failure. It isn't.
They are winning. Let them.