The Cost - more poetry!

One final poem (I promise!) about the death of Bin Laden and whether or not it was worth the cost...

The Cost

What is a man’s death worth?
What dark accountant calculates the sum of his deeds
And weighs it against the lives of others?
A brutal calculus of retribution,
A ruthless equation of multiplied loss.
Untold lives subtracted,
And added to the debit column
But the debt is never cleared.
In the final reckoning,
Can anyone truly say,
That it was worth the price paid
For the sake of vengeance gained.


Note: to give some background, in Afghanistan alone the "war on terror" has claimed well over 2000 lives from coalition forces
Source for coalition deaths

Estimates of civilian casualties are harder to find but at a bare minimum they number in the tens of thousands
Source for civilian casualties

All I've spoken about is the war in Afghanistan. That last link contains casualty figures for Iraq as well, which are substantially worse, but that was just too depressing to talk about.
In summary, war is bad, stop shooting people m'kay