I have no doubt that if the U.S. was invaded Americans would spring to our common defense and wage a victorious war no matter how long it took or the cost in lives. It would be worth the sacrifice. The war in Iraq is George W. Bush's war of choice (not a last resort). Iraq never attacked or threatened the United States before Commander-in-Chief Bush ordered the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. At a subliminal level Americans know this as does the Bush-Cheney regime. The U.S. cannot wage all out war because we are the aggressors in this war. We are in the wrong. That truth has yet to be acknowledged and corrected.
U.S. toll in Iraq lower than past wars
quote:
By JEFF DONN, Associated Press Writer
8:44 pm EST Sunday 31 December 2006
A four-figure number hovers 50 feet over a busy Philadelphia street, visible in an office window. It changes maybe once or twice a day like the cost of something.
A janitor once stopped, just to stare. "I see that number, and it makes me cry," he told Celeste Zappala, who keeps the running tally.
It is a number that strongly moves American opinion: the U.S. military's death toll in Iraq. Zappala's son, Sgt. Sherwood Baker, is one of the dead.
Other makeshift memorials rise up across the country as reminders of the war's human cost: flags planted in honor of the dead on the National Mall in Washington, symbolic tombstones at the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, signs with fallen soldiers' names plastered to telephone polls outside Boston.
Americans may question this war for many reasons, but their doubts often find voice in the count of U.S. war deaths. An overwhelming majority — 84 percent — worry that the war is causing too many casualties, according to a September poll by the nonpartisan research group Public Agenda.
The country largely kept the faith during World War II, even as about 400,000 U.S. forces died — 20,000 just in the monthlong Battle of the Bulge. Before turning against the wars in Korea and Vietnam, Americans tolerated thousands more deaths than in Iraq.
Has something changed? Do Americans somehow place higher value on the lives of their soldiers now? Do they expect success at lower cost? Or do most simply dismiss this particular war as the wrong one — hard to understand and harder to win — and so not worth the losses?
The Associated Press recently posed these questions to scholars, veterans, activists, and other Americans. Their comments suggest that the public does express more pain over the deaths of this war.
A death toll of 3,000 simply sounds higher to Americans in this war than it did in other prolonged conflicts of the past century, for a number of reasons, the interviews suggest.
"As fewer Americans die in war, their loss is more keenly felt, not necessarily at a personal level, but at a collective and public level," says historian Michael Allen at North Carolina State University.
Jeffrey Greenwood, 17, of Plymouth, Mass., though unsure of the exact number of Iraq war deaths, says, "I know it's enough to make people angry."
John Mueller, a political scientist at Ohio State University, calls this casualty sensitivity "the Iraq syndrome." He described it in an influential journal article last year: "Casualty for casualty, support has declined far more quickly than it did during either the Korean War or the Vietnam War."
In the weeks after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, public backing was powerful. But opinion began to shift quickly once the Iraqi army was beaten, its leader was forced into hiding, and chemical, biological or nuclear weapons were not found.
• By late 2003, public support for the occupation began to seesaw around 50 percent, according to Richard Eichenberg, a political scientist at Tufts University.
• In September 2005, 55 percent of Americans favored stronger efforts to withdraw because of the losses, a Gallup poll found.
• Last October, 54 percent of registered voters believed the war wasn't worth the U.S. casualties or cost, a Hart-McInturff poll found. In November, voters reversed the congressional balance of power in an election viewed as a referendum on Iraq.
Polling analysts believe Americans are more sensitive to casualties than in the past because they neither see vital interests at stake nor feel the "halo effect" from a clear prospect of success.
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But are Americans willing to hang in a tough fight anymore?
Some wonder if U.S. society, now populated by baby boomers who recall Vietnam and never knew the hardships of the Great Depression or World War II, has simply lost its stomach for great sacrifices. Or perhaps in a materialistic culture, priorities are simply elsewhere now. "Everybody's looking to get theirs," says Tony Bouza, a veteran and former Minneapolis police chief who wrote "The Decline and Fall of the American Empire."
Many analysts argue otherwise. Some say Americans would still abide far more troop deaths, as in the world wars, if the cause were clear and dear. Others say today such an attitude would only return in the event of an invasion of the United States.
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Faire l'amour, pas la guerre
Make love not war
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