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November 26, 2006
Apples and oranges, my friends
What ever happened to the kind of Americans who were willing to endure tough times, sacrifice, fight and die, until the job was done?
The "Greatest Generation" tradition of grit and determination has been supplanted by "When the going gets tough, we have grief counselors standing by."
People's exhibit 1: USA Today.
The Iraq war is about to reach a benchmark that puts it on par with World War II by one measure: Sunday, it will have lasted the same number of days — 1,347 —that the United States fought the Axis.
To be fair to the newspaper, the balance of the article points out the ways in which WWII differed from the task we face in Iraq. But that statistic, that we defeated the Axis in less time than the jihadis, is already being bandied about by the ahistorical America Lasters who seek any means to undercut our efforts to kill our enemies.
The folks at Mudville Gazette have the perfect riposte.
On a related note, at the current rate the US military death toll will surpass that of the 1.5-year long Mexican War (13283) in another 10 or 12 years or so.
I'm not going to do the math on how long it will take to equal WWII's U.S. death toll (the comparison is ridiculous, and only an idiot would make it) but we've already had more killed than on D-Day.
Eclipsing the month-long battle for Iwo Jima could happen soon though -- maybe another 4 years or so.
A better comparison might be the Phillipine's war (1899-1902) -- 4300 American dead, and loads of accusations of imperialism and torture too. Of course, we have left the Phillipines, so that war appears to be over for now.
But then you'd have to know your history to put the current casualties in perspective, assuming you wanted to have an honest debate about the costs of our war against the terrorists.
And so we're left with two explanations for the use of the "We beat Hitler in 4 years but we can't beat Hadji" meme: a false concern for the troops providing cover for a deep-seated strain of anti-Americanism; or a perfect storm of generational ignorance, stupidity and cowardice.
Take your pick; either works for me.
Posted by Mike Lief at November 26, 2006 09:23 PM
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