That Dull Ache

Nov 26, 2006 at 10:23 PM
3 comments

Tomorrow marks the day that we will have been in Iraq longer than we were in all of World War II.
That's right. We were able to defeat all of Nazi Germany, Mussolini, and the entire Japanese empire in LESS time than it's taken the world's only superpower to secure the road from the airport to downtown Baghdad.
And we haven't even done THAT. After 1,347 days, in the same time it took us to took us to sweep across North Africa, storm the beaches of Italy, conquer the South Pacific, and liberate all of Western Europe, we cannot, after over 3 and 1/2 years, even take over a single highway and protect ourselves from a homemade device of two tin cans placed in a pothole.

From MichaelMoore.com

If redeploy is a euphemism for retreat than let's get on with it and let everyone get on with their lives. Mr. Moore puts things into perspective later in his letter saying that the French, who assisted the Americans in overthrowing their dictator, didn't stick around to set up our government (it took several years until we had a Constitution by the way) nor swoop in to resolve our own Civil War.

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I wonder if Michael Moore understands that it took the atom bomb to end World War II? The decision to use the atom bomb was a decision to save lives and end the war because the Japanese would not concede defeat unless it was demonstrated that America had the capability to wipe Japan off the map.

I like Michael Moore and all, at least when he's not acting like a quack, but his WWII-Iraq arguement is flawed. We entered WWII fairly late in the game, were the fresh legs, and yes, had The Bomb. Besides, the combat now is so different. Wars in the future that aren't won with strategic missiles and pinpoint destruction will take much longer than those of the past. Because, I mean, with weapons nowadays, we've pretty much hit a crescendo in technology and tactics. You can only kill a person but so much.

Good point about the atom bomb but this time around we're not fighting an institution that can be clearly targeted (although I would argue the people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not the core target). The problem is that we're fighting a 21st century enemy with a 20th century strategy. If we're trying to convince an ideology that we're the good guys and mean well, we missed our chance to throw money and resources to help those that suffered from the Tsunami and Pakistani earthquake which impacted primarily Muslim regions.

The concept of "nation state" does not apply to this conflict and atom bombs and other offensive weapons assume you're fighting an offensive war against an organized force.

We're pushing on the wrong lever and should try something else.

That Dull Ache

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