2,000 Dead, in Context

[rumbleph1$h]

2,000 Dead, in Context

By VICTOR DAVIS HANSON

Published: October 27, 2005

Valletta, Malta

AS the aggregate number of American military fatalities in Iraq has crept up over the past 13 months - from 1,000 to 1,500 dead, and now to 2,000 - public support for the war has commensurately declined. With the nightly ghoulish news of improvised explosives and suicide bombers, Americans perhaps do not appreciate that the toppling of Saddam Hussein and the effort to establish a democratic government in Iraq have been accomplished at relatively moderate cost - two-thirds of the civilian fatalities incurred four years ago on the first day of the war against terrorism.

Comparative historical arguments, too, are not much welcome in making sense of the tragic military deaths - any more than citing the tens of thousands Americans who perish in traffic accidents each year. And few care to hear that the penultimate battles of a war are often the costliest - like the terrible summer of 1864 that nearly ruined the Army of the Potomac and almost ushered in a Copperhead government eager to stop at any cost the Civil War, without either ending slavery or restoring the Union. The battle for Okinawa was an abject bloodbath that took more than 50,000 American casualties, yet that campaign officially ended less than six weeks before Nagasaki and the Japanese surrender.

Compared with Iraq, America lost almost 17 times more dead in Korea, and 29 times more again in Vietnam - in neither case defeating our enemies nor establishing democracy in a communist north.

Contemporary critics understandably lament our fourth year of war since Sept. 11 in terms of not achieving a victory like World War II in a similar stretch of time. But that is to forget the horrendous nature of such comparison when we remember that America lost 400,000 dead overseas at a time when the country was about half its present size.

There is a variety of explanations why the carnage of history seems to bring today's public little comfort or perspective about the comparatively moderate costs of Iraq. First, Americans, like most democratic people, can endure fatalities if they believe they come in the pursuit of victory, during a war against an aggressor with a definite beginning and end. That's why most polls found that about three-quarters of the American people approved of the invasion upon the fall of the Saddam Hussein statue in Baghdad in April 2003.

The public's anguish for the fewer than 150 lost during that campaign was counterbalanced by the apparently easy victory and the visible signs of enemy capitulation. But between the first 200 fatalities and the 2,000th, a third of those favoring the war changed their minds, now writing off Iraq as a mistake. Perhaps we could summarize this radical transformation as, "I was for my easy removal of Saddam, but not for your bungled and costly postwar reconstruction."

Part of the explanation is that, like all wars against amorphous insurgencies, the current struggle requires almost constant explanation by the government to show how and why troops are fighting in a necessary cause - and for the nation's long-term security interests. Unless official spokesmen can continually connect the terrible sacrifices of our youth with the need to establish a consensual government in Iraq that might help to end the old pathology of the Middle East, in which autocracies spawn parasitic anti-Western terrorists, then the TV screen's images of blown-up American troops become the dominant narrative. The Bush administration, of course, did not help itself by having put forth weapons of mass destruction as the primary reason for the invasion - when the Senate, in bipartisan fashion, had previously authorized the war on a score of other sensible writs.

Yet castigating a sitting president for incurring such losses in even a victorious or worthy cause is hardly new. World War I and its aftermath destroyed Woodrow Wilson. Franklin Roosevelt's closest election was his fourth, just as the war was turning for the better in 1944 (a far better fate, remember, than his coalition partner Winston Churchill, who was thrown out of office before the final victory that he had done so much to ensure). Harry Truman wisely did not seek re-election in 1952 in the mess of Korea. Vietnam destroyed Lyndon Johnson and crippled Richard Nixon. Even George H. W. Bush found no lasting thanks for his miraculous victory in the 1991 Gulf war, while Bill Clinton's decision to tamper Serbian aggression - a victory obtained without the loss of a single American life - gave him no stored political capital when impeachment neared.

Americans are not afraid of wars, and usually win them, but our nature is not militaristic. Generals may become heroes despite the loss of life, but the presidents rarely find much appreciation even in victory.

Television and the global news media have changed the perception of combat fatalities as well. CNN would have shown a very different Iwo Jima - bodies rotting on the beach, and probably no coverage of the flag-raising from Mount Suribachi. It is conventional wisdom now to praise the amazing accomplishment of June 6, 1944. But a few ex tempore editorial comments from Geraldo Rivera or Ted Koppel, reporting live from the bloody hedgerows where the Allied advance stalled not far from the D-Day beaches - a situation rife with intelligence failures, poor equipment and complete surprise at German tactics - might have forced a public outcry to withdraw the forces from the Normandy "debacle" before it became a "quagmire."

Someone - perhaps Gens. Omar Bradley, Dwight Eisenhower or George Marshall himself - would have been fired as responsible for sending hundred of poorly protected armored vehicles down the narrow wooded lanes of the Bocage to be torched by well-concealed Germans. Subsequent press conferences over underarmored Sherman tanks would have made the present furor over Humvees in Iraq seem minor.

We are also now a different, much more demanding people. Americans have become mostly suburban, at great distance from the bloodletting and routine mayhem on the farms of our ancestors. We feel cheated if we don't die at 85 in quiet sleep rather than, as in the past, at 50 right on the job. Popular culture demands that we look 40 when we are 60, and with a pill we can transform fatal diseases into the status of mere runny noses. (Admittedly, this same degree of medical technology has kept the death total in Iraq a far smaller percentage of overall casualties than it would have been in any earlier war.)

Our technology is supposed to conquer time and space, and make the nearly impossible seem boringly routine. Ejecting a half-million or so Iraqis from Kuwait halfway around the world in 1991, or stopping Slobodan Milosevic from killing civilians is not just conceivable, but can and should be done almost instantly with few or no American lives lost. With such expectations of perfection, any death becomes a near national catastrophe for nearly 300 million in a way the disasters at the battles of Antietam and Tarawa were for earlier, fewer and poorer Americans.

If our enemies similarly believed in the obsolescence of war that so heartlessly has taken 2,000 of our best young men and women, then we could find solace in our growing intolerance of any battlefield losses. But until the nature of man himself changes, there will be wars that take our youth, and we will be increasingly vexed to explain why we should let them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/27/opinion/...ml?pagewanted=1

[John S. Veteran]

2,000 Dead, in Context

Compared with Iraq, America lost almost 17 times more dead in Korea, and 29 times more again in Vietnam - in neither case defeating our enemies nor establishing democracy in a communist north.

Contemporary critics understandably lament our fourth year of war since Sept. 11 in terms of not achieving a victory like World War II in a similar stretch of time. But that is to forget the horrendous nature of such comparison when we remember that America lost 400,000 dead overseas at a time when the country was about half its present size.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/27/opinion/...ml?pagewanted=1

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That speaks volumes, thanks for the article

[vincent]

*cough* WWII *cough*

[n3wt]

I would say that the reason you see so many objectors this time around, is that people are more exposed to the war. You saw it a bit with vietnam, but nowhere near on the level you see now, people know what is going on all the time. Korea and Vietnam were largely Meat-Grinders with little to nothing gained, but the people didn't know about it on the level they do today, so now you get people saying "What the hell, people are dying over there for no good reason."

[Mr. Golden Deal]

I didn't realize that there was a death quota before a war can be won. Thanks, rumbleph1sh, for enlightening me.

You can't beat "terrorism" by shooting at people. You have to change people's minds, since terrorism is a concept, not an opposing enemy force. If the U.S.'s wars were actually about fighting terrorism, they should be trying to make themselves better liked, rather than vilified.

[n3wt]

You can't beat "terrorism" by shooting at people.

Here is a fun little visualization exercise. Everybody gather round. Alright, imagine me blowing your face off with an M16, how many people did I just **** off? How many people are going to now try and hunt me down like a dog. Also, if you're an incurable loser, just imagine that you're someone people would actually care about, and go from there.

[Whiffle]

Good read. I think part of the problem with the issue of support at home is that the news we all see is negative...totally negative. Sure there is the occasional big story about the election or the constitution, but majority of the news on Iraq is blatantly negative, giving the impression that nothing is going right and we're not making any progress over there, which is nonsense. I tend to delve into the "alternative" news sources quite often and its absolutely appalling the amount of good things that happen over there every day that you NEVER hear about in the mainstream news. If I weren't as familiar with the situation as I am, I would probably be totally against it. The fact is that I wholeheartedly agree with the war. Don't label me as a bush lover either, I'm not. I have plenty of beef with him, but the war isn't part of it, not in the least bit.

You can't beat "terrorism" by shooting at people. You have to change people's minds, since terrorism is a concept, not an opposing enemy force. If the U.S.'s wars were actually about fighting terrorism, they should be trying to make themselves better liked, rather than vilified.

Terrorism is not a concept. Terrorism is a method of getting change by striking fear into peoples hearts (aka...terrorizing). The people we are fighting realize that they cannot win their goals, whatever they may be, through policy, protesting or all out war. Therefore, they resort to terrorism, in order to inflict the most emotion on the most people with the smallest investment of resources. This is where you get highly visible attacks such as those on 9/11, Bali and elsewhere, because it inflicts the most pain on people and really costs very little to the perpetrators.

Fighting terrorism is much much more than "shooting at people", including such things as freezing funds, psychological warfare, securing borders, striking deals to get rid of hiding places, etc. Nobody thinks you can just go out and kill a bunch of people and eliminate terrorists, no way no how. Besides, most of the people we are fighting in Iraq right now are from Syria and Iran. Democracy in Iraq is their worst nightmare, and they will do everything they can to try to prevent it, being nice to them isn't going to make them stop.

Here is an example of who we are fighting (although not really related directly to Iraq)

Q. In regard to the global condition, what kind of things can the West, especially America, do to make this world more peaceful. What kind of attitudes must be changed?

A. They have to stop fighting Islam, but that?s impossible because it is ?sunnatullah? [destiny, a law of nature], as Allah has said in the Qur?an. They will constantly be enemies. But they?ll lose. I say this not because I am able to predict the future but they will lose and Islam will win. That was what the Prophet Muhammad has said. Islam must win and Westerners will be destroyed. But we don?t have to make them enemies if they allow Islam to continue to grow so that in the end they will probably agree to be under Islam. If they refuse to be under Islam, it will be chaos. Full stop. If they want to have peace, they have to accept to be governed by Islam.

http://jamestown.org/terrorism/news/articl...ticleid=2369782

[Whiffle]

Iranians in Iraq huh, that'll be the day, not really up on your history are you, if anything some Iranians would have snuck in to kill Iraqis, not Americans.  And I would think the Syrians would be more concerned with fighting democracy in Lebanon.

586730699[/snapback]

I didn't say they were there to kill Iraqis or Americans. I said they don't want democracy there.

I don't know, but this guy happens to be from Iraq...and...

One reason why people fear a theocracy in Iraq is due to Iranian meddling in Iraq. Like I said before, this is done through support for certain Shia groups, tending to be those who are anti-governmental. I believe that Muqtada al-Sadr receives support from Iran, whereas Ayatollah sistani does not because the Ayatollahs in Iran are threatened by his apolitical nature.

The other two neighbors of ours that are trying to affect our future directly are Saudi Arabia and Syria. Jordan has some role, but they can't do much for various reasons.

http://democracyiniraq.blogspot.com/2005/0...influences.html

[n3wt]

Besides, most of the people we are fighting in Iraq right now are from Syria and Iran.

Iranians in Iraq huh, that'll be the day, not really up on your history are you, if anything some Iranians would have snuck in to kill Iraqis, not Americans. And I would think the Syrians would be more concerned with fighting democracy in Lebanon.

[Mr. Golden Deal]

Still, terrorism is abstract, a tactic, not anything you can actually harm. Sure, you can hamper terrorist organizations, but you're still no closer to stopping regular people from wanting to terrorize others. This mainly comes from desperation, when they feel like their voices won't be heard any other way. Lack of education and poverty also significantly contribute. If you Americans don't learn how to stop people from wanting to take up arms against you, you're always going to have an issue with terrorists. You're attacking the symptoms of problems and ignoring the underlying causes.

In regards to your quote, yes, he does sound pretty freaking nuts. Then again, so would someone quoting the Bible and saying that God guides their actions. Oh wait...

[Mr. Golden Deal]

Alright let me ask you this: if the U.S. is really trying to combat "terrorism," why has it not done anything to Saudi Arabia? 19 of the 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, Osama bin Laden (still remember him? your government doesn't seem to) is from Saudi Arabia, and Saudia Arabia is the largest financial contributor to fundamentalist Islamic terrorist groups.

[Whiffle]

Still, terrorism is abstract, a tactic, not anything you can actually harm. Sure, you can hamper terrorist organizations, but you're still no closer to stopping regular people from wanting to terrorize others. This mainly comes from desperation, when they feel like their voices won't be heard any other way. Lack of education and poverty also significantly contribute. If you Americans don't learn how to stop people from wanting to take up arms against you, you're always going to have an issue with terrorists. You're attacking the symptoms of problems and ignoring the underlying causes.

In regards to your quote, yes, he does sound pretty freaking nuts. Then again, so would someone quoting the Bible and saying that God guides their actions. Oh wait...

586730702[/snapback]

So what do you suggest we do then, since you appear to know what the U.S. needs to do?

As far as I'm concerned we're going to have issues with terrorists as long as we live. There is no getting around war, there is always someone in the world who feels that they have no choice but to fight for what they believe, whether or not that belief is justified. No amount of "being nice" will stop that. At risk of sounding like a "we're better than you" type, I'd say that one reason we have these issues is simply because we are the U.S, the one country in the world with the biggest economy, the most money, the biggest military, all that jazz. Naturally, when something happens thats bad in the world, we get blamed for it, and thats why people hate us. As long as we are "on top," we are going to have terrorism.

Yes, that guy does sound nuts. The difference between the guy in my quote and your off the wall reference to President Bush is that the Bush quote is not an actual quote, but something that a Palestinian guy said that Bush said, which really really drops the credibility in my book. Lets assume though that he really did say that God told him to attack Iraq. Isn't that a little different than saying that if we want peace, we will have to accept to be governerned by Islam? Excuse me but I will never accept to be governed under Islam, but I fully support taking Saddam out of power.

[Whiffle]

Alright let me ask you this: if the U.S. is really trying to combat "terrorism," why has it not done anything to Saudi Arabia? 19 of the 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, Osama bin Laden (still remember him? your government doesn't seem to) is from Saudi Arabia, and Saudia Arabia is the largest financial contributor to fundamentalist Islamic terrorist groups.

586730721[/snapback]

This is where economics comes in, and the reality of it is sad. This country (and the world), depends on oil, provided in large part by the ME. Saudi Arabia is a big contribution to this, and I strongly doubt that unless some crazy smoking gun is uncovered, we'll never go after Saudi Arabia, as we still depend on them too much. No matter what the ideals and ethics are, we still have to pay the bills, and that ****es me off but its the way the world works. Its a similar situation to our southern borders. They are swiss cheese. Illegal immigrants come into this country by the millions, but none of the politicians will touch the issue, even though it is a blatantly obvious national security issue. Why? Both parties want the hispanic vote in the next election, and closing the borders would really hurt their chances of getting it.

Nobody has forgotten about OBL. Never will. I personally think he's a bit of a figurehead and getting rid of him really won't take care of much, but it gives our stupid news media a face to throw up on the news as the face of terrorism. His picture is right here: www.fbi.gov

[insanekiwi]

well iraq voted for the new constitution/government and it got accepted with a mojaority of 78%. i hope the situation cools down now and georgy stops sacrificing tough soldiers.

[Hitman2000]

Yes terrorism is a concept, a tactic, you cannot grab terrorism with your hands and stop it. Anyone is capable of terrorism wheter they are muslim,jewish, christian any religion or skin.

Just like murder (im not being rasicts here) say for example 80% of murders are black does that mean all blacks are murders?? no. Same thing in the Middle East people think USA is fighting a war against Islam.

That is what USA must understand it is killing people in Middle East who are "terrorists" is not achieving anything, have to get to the root of the problem. But by killing one terrorist spawns even more hate and then causes that guys son/brother ect to also becom a terrorist. I know I dont have a solution but killing is not going to achieve anything.

[mAcOdIn Veteran]

I like this one a lot better rumbleph1sh.

It's interesting to think why x amount of deaths is acceptable and y is not, after all it's all really arbitrary to most of the arm chair generals who actually criticize or support the war, the ones it matters to are the soldiers themselves and thier families. And more annoying to me, where American compassion is concerned, is the total hypocracy of most citizens when it comes to the military. Truth be told I don't think even 10% of the so called bleeding hearts really care about our troops, where were they during the USS Cole or any other attack on US forces abroad? But lo and behold the second a civilian gets killed it's a huge deal for them, all of a sudden thier little bubble of safety is burst and now they care, and while they seem to care about how many live or die, they don't seem to really think of any of us as equals, we're all coerced sheep who must be saved from a crazy politician pulling all of our strings and the only reason we joined was because if we didn't we'd all be on welfare or some crap. That's what they think and it drives me nuts. Sometimes I think the military'd be better of without thier sympathy.

As for the comparisons against WW 2 I think most of them are really flawed. I mean in WW 2 you had a truly global war, against clear cut enemies, where every single facet of military might was to bear, only AFTER we were directly attacked. I don't think this compares to Iraq in any way. We do not have every swinging d**k out there hunting for insurgents and to make matters worse, politically, we instigated the war. So I think what alot of Americans don't understand is, if we were able to choose the time, place, and means of the war, why exactly would we do it with so few and why exactly would they not have the best equipment available at that time in history? That's why I think the administration gets soo much more flack over this war than many previous wars. In WW 2 we didn't have the luxory of choosing the time of attack, the method, or anything like that. We tried somewhat by staying out of it for so long and we did use that time to build up, and truth be told, had we entered the war right when it started we probably would have gotten our asses handed to us. I mean if I was going to attack another nation, a nation contained and not going anywhere, why set a hard date for it? Why send half the people you need and half the equipment? It's not like there was any real reason it had to be March, it could have been March 03, where was Saddam going to go? It was basically extremely poor planning on the higher ups part to not afford our troops every available luxory available in our arsenal when we ourselves were the ones deciding when, where, and how we attacked. That in my opinion is infinitely less forgivable than any other mistake made in Iraq.

Edited October 27, 2005 by mAcOdIn

[Vykranth]

It was a very interesting article. Thank you for sharing.

There is a point in the article that could have been even more emphasized: the influence of the global media. Ever since the first Gulf war in 1991, the US media (maybe aided by the propaganda machine) has been trying to sell a blood-less, sterilized notion of war as if war was like a video-game played remotely.

This is just not true: there are no such things as "surgical strikes" or "collateral damage": during a war, there are soldiers going to the field, risking their lives and these soldiers may die.

This is the sad and terrible truth of war: people die during wars.

The US medias seem to have discovered suddenly that it is still true in 2005. Yes, sadly, it's still true.

I think the loss of support of the military currently going on in the US is due to the biased media reporting and also the extremely crappy job the US administration is doing to put forward what the US soldiers have accomplished in Irak (as Armeck mentioned in an other thread in RWI)

[R-Flex]

While numbers may make Iraq look tame, it is not the numbers that are cared about. It is not like money, where we can use numbers to show what losses have been made. It is life, a precious commodity. Even one is unacceptable to many people. 2,000 is a huge loss. 400,000 is a huge loss. Whatever the number, it is a loss, one that many find unacceptable. We cannot gauge life with numbers.

The number 2,000 is only an accessory to those who find that they don't agree with the war, especially with the losses. World War II was acceptable, likely because the U.S. had been attacked. Therefore, more people found it reasonable when Americans died. Not so in Iraq. When more and more die, they find themselves questioning why so many have died for a cause they don't find worthy enough.

Also, you must not forgot the Iraqis who have perished. They are being remembered as another terrible loss of the war. Between Americans and Arabs, there are a huge amount of people dead, and there is a growing number of Americans who don't agree with that.

[the long lost son]

Yes terrorism is a concept, a tactic, you cannot grab terrorism with your hands and stop it. Anyone is capable of terrorism wheter they are muslim,jewish, christian any religion or skin.

Just like murder (im not being rasicts here) say for example 80% of murders are black does that mean all blacks are murders?? no. Same thing in the Middle East people think USA is fighting a war against Islam.

That is what USA must understand it is killing people in Middle East who are "terrorists" is not achieving anything, have to get to the root of the problem. But by killing one terrorist spawns even more hate and then causes that guys son/brother ect to also becom a terrorist. I know I dont have a solution but killing is not going to achieve anything.

586730894[/snapback]

Nazism, Communism, and Marxism were also "concepts" that you could grab with your hands and stop it.

Funny, we somehow stopped those...

[metallithrax]

Q. In regard to the global condition, what kind of things can the West, especially America, do to make this world more peaceful. What kind of attitudes must be changed?

A. They have to stop fighting Islam, but that?s impossible because it is ?sunnatullah? [destiny, a law of nature], as Allah has said in the Qur?an. They will constantly be enemies. But they?ll lose. I say this not because I am able to predict the future but they will lose and Islam will win. That was what the Prophet Muhammad has s must> must win and Westernerdestroyedtroyed. But we don?t have to make them enemies if they allow Islam to continue to grow so that in the end they will probably agree to be under Islam. If they refuse to be under Islam, it will be chaos. Full stop. If they want to have have have to accept to be governed by Islam.

So going by this answer, the only way to have peace is for Islam to rule the world. Never going to happen.

[R-Flex]

Nazism, Communism, and Marxism were also "concepts" that you could grab with your hands and stop it.

Funny, we somehow stopped those...

586737223[/snapback]

Terrorism is far different from those.

And for communism, the enemy that was so feared and hated, it is now tolerated in the countries still remaining with it...Laos, Vietnam, Cuba, Libya, to name a few. It was not the capitalists who stopped Russian communism, and communism is still alive and well.

[n3wt]

Nazism, Communism, and Marxism were also "concepts" that you could grab with your hands and stop it.

Funny, we somehow stopped those...

What? In what universe?