what a shithead.

Who are the wounded?
iraqcasualties.blogspot.com

Letters from Iraq
iraqletters.blogspot.com

And these are the very same people who, just a few short months ago, were talking cakewalk and flowers being tossed to our troops.

The American people might like winning wars, but when the continuing mission is in disarray, the justification for attack is found wanting, and the casualties still keep coming home in neatly sealed black little bags, they will turn against this administration with a vengeance unseen in modern America...

"I think the American people are going to have great tolerance for the war taking longer, and they are going to have great tolerance for more casualties."

Yeah, that pretty much jibes with what I know of Vietnam. That's what I took away from Hearts and Minds.

>>>
I think the level of casualties is secondary. I mean, it may sound like an odd thing to say, but all the great scholars who have studied American character have come to the conclusion that we are a warlike people and that we love war. . . . What we hate is not casualties but losing. And if the war goes well and if the American public has the conviction that we're being well-led and that our people are fighting well and that we're winning, I don't think casualties are going to be the issue.

Michael Leeden
AEI Breakfast
March 27, 2003
<<<

This sounds like a pretty good justification for pre-emptive action on the part of the rest of the world.

The American people might like winning wars, but when the continuing mission is in disarray, the justification for attack is found wanting, and the casualties still keep coming home in neatly sealed black little bags,

I think the number of Americans who find the mission in disarray and the justifications wanting is a far smaller number than you might project.

they will turn against this administration with a vengeance unseen in modern America...

That's a bit hyperbolic. Time will tell on both counts, though.

I am reminded of the July 4 headline on Drudge. It had a picture of the Iwo Jima monument with fireworks behind it. The headline read "Two Hundred Twenty Seven." My first thought was, holy crap, 227 soldiers died in Iraq? But there was no link to explain further. Later in the day it was changed so it more clearly referred to July 4. Oh.

Actually, Ledeen is a nasty piece in my opinion. The killer (sic) line is:

But all the great scholars who have studied American character have come to the conclusion that we are a warlike people. And that we love war.

I think one of the worse things this administration did was to seduce the American public into "loving" war. And this in a country where the majority of the public calls itself Christian.

As difficult as it may be for us to admit, those statements aren't completely false.

Tne nation as a whole is like a fickle crowd at a football game; rooting for whatever team is winning. Sadly so, a large portion of our citizens is perfectly content with the level of casualties so far. Why? Because the big bad US of A kicked some Iraqi butt. But that's not all. Look a little deeper and you'll see that a great deal of citizens don't place any personal relation to these casualties. This whole ordeal has been carefully played out on television like the latest Bruce Willis action flick. The American public has been spoon-fed the pretty version of the war; smiling Iraqi civilians and triumphant troops tearing down statues of the horrendous Saddam Hussein. To the fickle crowd, GW is the triumphant coach and the casualties nothing more than injured players on the field.

Horrible, but true. You want to fix it? You want to wake these fickle, reality-TV watching bastards up? Put the families of these Marines and Soldiers on every warm and fuzzy, morning news show to spread to the nation the pain and heartache they now feel every day of their life. Show them pictures of those sons and daughters, dead, face down in the dirt. Show them pictures of a 19-year-old Soldier blind and bound to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Instead of spreading this cumbaya, change the world crap, show them what war really is.

This whole crisis of how the Democrats are going to win back the White House is ridiculous. You want to win it back? Embrace the truth and spread it as loud and quickly as possible. GW puts his proud face up on a billboard in Times Square? Run a 30-second bit on one of the hundreds of wives he's successfully widowed. Or maybe one of the thousands of citizens he's made jobless. Or better yet, show him dumping billions of dollars into another country while he cuts 1.5 billion dollars from our troops. The truth. The truth will win back the White House.

MH: This sounds like a pretty good justification for pre-emptive action on the part of the rest of the world.

And the US government is surprised that North Korea and Iran want to develop nuclear weapons, and outraged that the DPRK has come out and said that they believe it's the only way of protecting their sovereignty.

L

I think the number of Americans who find the mission in disarray and the justifications wanting is a far smaller number than you might project.

That's a bit hyperbolic. Time will tell on both counts, though.

Having lived through the entire Vietnam debacle, including a two year hitch in the USMC, I got to see the war get started accompanied by great patriotic fanfare and conviction. The early big unit battles went well for us, and we were momentarily victorious, but the Vietnamese didn't quit, for they had been fighting invaders for more than a thousand years. They studied how we fought, and they adapted their tactics. Classic guerrilla warfare. It was the death by a thousand cuts. A landmine here, a boobytrap there, a sudden violent attack and firefight in the jungle followed by an eerie silence. We were never sure who our enemies were, but we were sure that the Vietnamese were prepared to die for their cause. Over time, the bitter taste of the death and destruction of our young men overcame our appetite for war. That was the tipping point then, but it still took the politicians several more years to find a way out...

I see precious little difference between this current war, and the Vietnam War. I just hope the way out is a quick as the way in, but I know that's not how the game will play out...

Here's a little reminiscence from Jonah Goldberg on his pal, Michael Ledeen:

Well, I’ve long been an admirer of, if not a full-fledged subscriber to, what I call the “Ledeen Doctrine.” I’m not sure my friend Michael Ledeen will thank me for ascribing authorship to him and he may have only been semi-serious when he crafted it, but here is the bedrock tenet of the Ledeen Doctrine in more or less his own words: “Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.” That’s at least how I remember Michael phrasing it at a speech at the American Enterprise Institute about a decade ago.

Don, I agree. While some of us are truly mad people who lust for war and blood, most of us are just so far removed from the real results of war that it seems like a game. When the shooting started, the radio show on NPR, All Things Considered, read from letters sent in by listeners. One was from a woman who did not want to hear the shooting and shouting noises from her radio. Another thought that reporting about a kid finding and recovering a human hand from the street after one of our missiles went astray was just too disturbing to be allowed. We support our troops so long as we don't have to know what they are doing, or seeing, or living with. Yay, team. Win one for the Gipper. Just don't tell us how you do it.

I curse the bastards who sent those men and women into Iraq to do the things they did and to see the things they saw. Now they want to sentence them - and others to be named later - to a 3 to 5 year committment to hell in a hostile land. Meanwhile, Queen Bremer abandons the transition in favor of setting up Newt Gingrich's model of a perfect libertarian Paradise.

God rot these people. Sorry for the rant.

I think the number of Americans who find the mission in disarray and the justifications wanting is a far smaller number than you might project.

But your side, having staked everything on popular acceptance of the mission, really can't be very comfortable with the direction those numbers are going. Personally, I don't need the majority of people who respond to a poll to tell me what I believe is right and wrong, but this administration and its apologists seem to have a real addiction to the what they call "wisdom of the American people", defined quite narrowly as "better-than-50% public poll support for a radical conservative agenda disguised as moderate politics".

Here's a tip: base your policies in common sense measures that will help people, instead of what you project will sustain Bush's popularity ratings. Too late, I know; maybe next Republican president.

Don'tcha' just love the way the Publicans "support the troops?"

I too, tend to think that eventually the public will recognize the overreaching hubris of this radical administration. The question is will it happen before W causes long term damage to the nation.

I think that the drumbeat of casualties will eventually feel like water torture to Rummy and W; the difficulty of rotating troops out because of understaffing and overcommittment will cause real hardship and anger. And don't forget, the economy may not have really hit home yet for many. Most states have thusfar been able to soften the budget woes with rainy day funds they built up during the seven fat years. The coming fiscal year is when the shit really hits the fan. "User fees" and other duck-like revenue increases will abound, service cuts will hit bone.

Will it focus the voters' attention in time? I don't know.

Grayson Harper has written a piece called, Once More, Dear Friends He is a regular contributor on our weblog, tholos of athena. His biting critique throws a satirical light on the American obsession with war. And quite unlike Ledeen, the war fever as it occurs is not held up as a virtue. Click on my name below, and check out his commentary.

Excuse the spelling. I meant Michael Leeden, of course.

Actually, it is Ledeen, but by whatever name he's still a kook.

As exhibit "A" on that last note, I offer this evidence, wherein Ledeen argues that France, Germany and Osama bin Laden are all in cahoots against us.

And those US soldiers the Iraqi won't kill, other US soldiers will...
GUARDIAN STOREY