We hear it all the time in regards to the American quagmire in Iraq: "We must see this through and make sure that the sacrifices of our men and women in uniform have not been for nothing." This same rational was used to defend continued American involvement in the Vietnam War, another foreign policy disaster. But as much as any American progressive respects the sacrifices that American soldiers and sailors (many of whom have been recruited from the besieged working class), have made for America over the last five years we, we cannot use their bloodshed to discharge responsibility for crafting a rational and responsible exit strategy from Iraq, for to do so would be to commit the sunk cost fallacy.

You would think that the neocons, so eager to evoke classical economic principles to justify their all-out assault on America's middle class, would be a little more familiar with this concept: for those that don't know, a sunk cost is an expenditure that, for a variety of reasons, cannot be recalled-- like purchasing non-refundable movie tickets to a film you no longer wish to see.

But rather than rationally identifying the fact that this expenditure is "sunk," most consumers magnify its cost by "sticking it out". Obviously this is circular reasoning: if you mistakenly bought tickets, wasting two more hours will not get you your money back. Yet most of us would still try to force ourselves into the theatre, using the rationalization that "we've come this far". In our emotional attempt to justify our actions, we ignore the fact that doubling down, reinvesting, or any other attempts to "stick it out" will not erase the past.

The same holds true in foreign wars: the fact that we are in Iraq now has nothing to do with what we should do going forward; the cost is sunk. The gruesome reality that 3,000 Americans have died half a world away will not be cushioned by sending 3,000 more to their deaths-- you don't honor the sacrifices of young men and women by sacrificing yet more men and women, you honor their sacrifice by objectively evaluating the best course for the future, in this case by re-evaluating American policy.

Bloodshed is not justified by greater bloodshed.