2004 The age of the wimp
Perhaps it is because health care is so good but between the AIDS hysteria in this country and the furor over the combat casualties in the Iraqi conflict I'm getting a little peeved. I will grant that no parent or spouse will fail to grieve over the death of their beloved. But hell's bells people put this into historical perspective a little.
Prior to the 1880's damn near every single family lost children before they reached adulthood. Prior to anesthesia appendicitis was fatal. Every medical advance has brought us further from realizing our mortality every day. Perhaps the distance we have from death has led us to forget our own mortality and to treat death as not a natural consequence of life, but a horrible mistake.
Look at these figures (from here):
Gulf II we don't know yet, but so far there have been just over 1000. That's a WWII equivalent of what, 5 days?
So yes, the casualties are bad. We all wish they were lower. But maybe the wrong move in the war wasn't to going into Iraq, maybe the wrong move wasn't committing 50% of our GDP and 32 million of our best and brightest, train them, gear them up, and then go full tilt boogie at the rest of the quaking world. Don't go after Iraq, go after every f**king dicatorship in the world. Every country that pretends terror might be a possibility. Give them a choice, democracy now, or unconditional surrender later. Then, force democracy down their fr**king throats.
Let 'em know, yeah, 9/11. We noticed. Now notice this!
But Bush, and our administration knew, like al-Qaeda thought, we are going soft. Just not quite as soft as they might have hoped.
Prior to the 1880's damn near every single family lost children before they reached adulthood. Prior to anesthesia appendicitis was fatal. Every medical advance has brought us further from realizing our mortality every day. Perhaps the distance we have from death has led us to forget our own mortality and to treat death as not a natural consequence of life, but a horrible mistake.
Look at these figures (from here):
| War | KIA/Month |
| Revolutionary | 55 |
| War of 1812 | 75 |
| Civil War (North) | 2,293 |
| Civil War (South) | 1,553 |
| Civil War (Combined) | 3,846 |
| WWI | 2,816 |
| WWII | 6,639 |
| Korean | 909 |
| Vietnam | 536 |
| Gulf I | 148 |
Gulf II we don't know yet, but so far there have been just over 1000. That's a WWII equivalent of what, 5 days?
So yes, the casualties are bad. We all wish they were lower. But maybe the wrong move in the war wasn't to going into Iraq, maybe the wrong move wasn't committing 50% of our GDP and 32 million of our best and brightest, train them, gear them up, and then go full tilt boogie at the rest of the quaking world. Don't go after Iraq, go after every f**king dicatorship in the world. Every country that pretends terror might be a possibility. Give them a choice, democracy now, or unconditional surrender later. Then, force democracy down their fr**king throats.
Let 'em know, yeah, 9/11. We noticed. Now notice this!
But Bush, and our administration knew, like al-Qaeda thought, we are going soft. Just not quite as soft as they might have hoped.
posted by Mark at 10/07/2004 06:40:00 PM
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