There are important questions that are simply not being asked (or answered) by our current candidates for President:

What level of military and civilian casualties is justifiable, and what moral or ethical tools exist to judge collateral damage and acceptable economic costs to the Armed Forces of the United States and our allies?

What are the morals and ethics of preemption against Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear weapons and offensive counter proliferation for the leadership of the Armed Forces of the United States and our allies?

While I think most people would agree that as threats escalate, a proportional escalation in levels of "acceptable" casualties (both civilian and military) is justified. However, when threat analysis becomes politically motivated to confirm only pre-conceived judgments, civilian casualties sustained as a result can be fairly described as, well…murder. However, to be fair to American military men and women (who usually respond to day-to-day threats wisely and with due caution), an increasingly large portion of civilian casualties in Iraq are a consequence of insurgents attacks. But the larger question facing the leadership (current and potential) of the Armed Forces is whether the combined casualty figures are, or have been, justified. Was the threat to our national security so great, given what we now know about WMD's, to justify over 500 American soldiers killed, 2,515 American soldiers wounded, an unknown number of American and coalition civilian contractor casualties, and 8,037 to 9,874 Iraqi deaths?

The cost-benefit questions being hurled at the candidates regarding Saddam's removal are often badly misguided. They assume that if so-and-so candidate were President "Saddam would still be in power". Perhaps. But it's wildly disingenuous to suggest that any serious candidate would not have pursued strategies to deal with (or remove) Saddam. In many cases, there is a strong argument to be made that other strategies would have worked much better than full-scale invasion. For example: (a) declare Saddam a war criminal, (b) extend the no-fly zone over the entire country, and (c) unfreeze billions of dollars worth of Iraqi assets outside the country and turn them over to anti-Saddam expatriates to fund internal revolt. While this may sound like Monday morning quarterbacking, it is widely acknowledged that the largest foreign policy blunder we made with respect to Iraq was our decision to withhold support for the 1991 insurrection in Southern Iraq (well, either that or Bush Sr.'s scrupulous response to the infamous Highway of Death). There were alternatives to invasion other than fiddling with sanctions and inspections. Our war in Iraq was a war of choice, not of necessity. Hopefully, the candidates will make this case to the electorate and stop kicking each other's shins about who voted for what Senate resolution and why.