Thursday, September 30, 2004

 
Blood, Sweat, and Tears

VDH often worries(as do I)that we won't now tolerate casualities which are far less than suffered during WWII. As argued in old emails, the human brain may not be hard-wired to deal with (or scale up or down)with large numbers. The brain may be better at *comparing* large or small numbers with respect to ongoing friendly and enemy casualities. While ridiculed, it was not for nothing that the public was given and paid attention to "body counts" in Vietnam, and "the daily bag" in the Boer War. Enemy losses of men and materiel during WWII and many other conflicts were surely followed as well. The ratio or perceived ratio of casualities with respect to car and roadside bombs has probably been a key factor in polls showing a loss of "support for the war," even if Kerry hasn't benefited in anything like a one to one way. A change in tactics involving accepting massive civilian casualities in an air campaign against "insurgent" strong points or cities, while bringing in increase in protest by those who hate us(including, sadly many large D Democrats)might be enthusiatically supported by most of our population. I don't think that our people shed many tears over civilian deaths in Dresden, Berlin, Tokyo or Hiroshima. And in this respect, it is at least possible that we *don't* differ that much from our forebears. Americans might accept far higher losses if they are accompanied by disproportionately greater losses among our enemies. At the risk of undercutting the democratic movement in Iran(it *might* actually strengthen them)we should start sinking their ships, and (heh-heh) create a few "border incidents" to rile up an enemy which is already making war against us in Iraq. Long before Helprin's piece and before Iraq War II commenced, YT argued that we should invade Iraq in hopes that it would lead to a *larger* war while we are still able to win it.
And shame and coals upon the head of Kerry for complaining that some of our bases in Iraq had a permanent look about them. Unlike Kerry, who had the chutzpah to complain about Bush backing down in Fallujah(yep, it's *who* said it' not *what* was said and why)I don't think our troops should be used in house-to-house urban fighting. Air power should be used against urban guerillas. And air power and ground forces could be used with immensely gratifying effect if the Mullahs decide to cross the border in force.