“…which tone/goes with a mithril-chain vest?”

“We’re going to -try- and get you out of the green phase and into something a little less verdant, if you follow. West Country jeans in a pale shade of dried pipeweed, slightly distressed for that ‘hustle up that latte,my horsie’s double-parked’ look, and a side-buttoned orcsblood silk shirt from Miss Shelob’s Lair. And, since you obviously must have something to charm an Ent’s taste, an acid-green hanky in the pocket. -Another- pocket, please. Good. As for the vest, we all understand you have troll issues, so it stays under protest. Just don’t flap your arms; it’ll make you look like a crocheted deLorean.”

— Lidless Eye for the Half Guy, Third Season

Doug: I take nuclear weapons in the hands of madmen very, very seriously. Do you honestly think I would support the war if I didn’t think the stakes were so high? If it’s only worth invading Iraq up to, say 10K Americans dead, it almost certainly isn’t worth invading at all. I am extraordinarily grateful that an invasion that would be worthwhile at the cost of 500K American dead has cost fewer than 3K and counting.

A Coupla Blue Wizards Sittin’ Around Talkin’

“So, want to succumb?”
“What?”
“I hear everybody’s succumbing. Except that swot Gandalf.”
“Well, yes, of course except Dynamite Dick, but what in the name of Feanor’s balls are you on about?”
“Succumbing. You know.”
“Up until this very instant I thought I did. What do you think it means?”
“Well, I mean, you know -” [whispers]
“I see. Well, in actual fact, succubi may be involved in certain particular cases, not that I am going to mention names, but I believe you have once again managed to grasp the warg by the wrong end.”
“Oh. Want to do it anyway?”
“Yeah, bugger this for a game of Rohirrim. Let’s go into the West.”
“What’s in the West?”
“Vegas, Ithron baby, Vegas.”

If you want to fire back with a suitable metaphor, you can suggest that Bush’s words are in fact like the vile orc liquor which gives them a kind of bestial vigor but which all non-orcs find repulsive.

I’ll confess, I’m boggled. That’s twice the number of KIAs as in WWII and within 10 percent the total number of battle deaths in all of America’s wars since independence. You’re saying that Iraq is as important as all the other wars the United States has fought–combined.

In practical terms, I think this means that your support for war in Iraq is unreserved and unlimited, that there is no point at which you would say you had had enough.

(I also missed your lemba reference, though what I know of lembas is mostly filtered through Wm Gibson, with a faint recollection of The Serpent and the Rainbow.)

You are also fuzzing “established given.” Is “established given” “nuclear bomb,” or “the serious risk of a nuclear bomb”? The latter, to my mind, establishes sufficient relation between nuclear deaths in NYC and conventional deaths in Iraq–and I do not quite see how can say “serious risk” can be anything but “uncontestable.”

If more Americans die fighting in Iraq than will die if a nuclear bomb blast goes off in lower Manhattan at noon on a weekday, then it will not have been worth while to invade Iraq.