Context
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The great Victor Davis Hanson gives us the last word in the "grim milestone" of 2000 military deaths. As always, he keeps the line of reasoning very straight and very true.
[[ Television and the global news media have changed the perception of combat fatalities as well. CNN would have shown a very different Iwo Jima - bodies rotting on the beach, and probably no coverage of the flag-raising from Mount Suribachi. It is conventional wisdom now to praise the amazing accomplishment of June 6, 1944. But a few ex tempore editorial comments from Geraldo Rivera or Ted Koppel, reporting live from the bloody hedgerows where the Allied advance stalled not far from the D-Day beaches - a situation rife with intelligence failures, poor equipment and complete surprise at German tactics - might have forced a public outcry to withdraw the forces from the Normandy "debacle" before it became a "quagmire."
Someone - perhaps Gens. Omar Bradley, Dwight Eisenhower or George Marshall himself - would have been fired as responsible for sending hundred of poorly protected armored vehicles down the narrow wooded lanes of the Bocage to be torched by well-concealed Germans. Subsequent press conferences over underarmored Sherman tanks would have made the present furor over Humvees in Iraq seem minor. ]]
Explaining The Disdain
The column covers much more of the issue... you absolutely must go and read it all.
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posted by kmg at 05:29
5 Comments:
Wow... you have been having a good time in here, Tsar! Sorry to intrude... just wanted to say hi.
Carry on.
The Four Right Wing Wackos blog has a great rant on there about this same subject! (I edited the more "inflammatory" curse words, lol)
"2000
I figure I'll add my two cents to whatever the rest of the world is saying about the 2000th death of a US servicemember in Iraq.
First of all, I think Drumwaster's Rants has a good lesson in perspective.
Now then, to get to the meat of the matter:
Those two-thousand people died fighting for a multitude of reasons, no matter what the mentally deranged Left wants to think. They died clearing out a nest of terrorists. Anyone who tries to say that Iraq didn't have ties with international terrorism is a f*cking moron who needs to remove their head out from their a$$. Google up Abu Nidal. For cripes sake, Iraq had the fuselage of a Boeing 747 set up in a training camp! Just what could they use that for, hmmmmmm?
They did removing a genocidal mass-murdering dictator who threatened world peace. Anyone who thinks Saddam wasn't a threat is also a f*cking moron with their head up their a$$. As we're finding out more every day, the UN "sanctions" didn't do a damn thing except provide a source of funds for corrupt UN beurocrats and world leaders who were in Saddam's hip pocket, as well as allowing Saddam to buy damn near anything he wanted. Isn't it funny how new palaces sprang up in Iraq every year? Do you want me to believe that he had billions of dollars to spend on new palaces but not one cent for weapons? If you do, then you're too f*cking stupid to debate with. Go back to 3rd grade.
They died to protect America in the long term, not just the short term. Allowing that section of the world to continue to be nothing but dictator controlled $hitholes looking to blame anyone and everyone for their problems would do nothing but hurt the world as a whole. Afghanistan and Iraq are now democratic countries, voting on their constitutions, electing officials to represent them, and despite what the media wants you to believe, growing more stable every day.
Of course, since the liberals swallow whatever the MSM put down before them unquestioningly, I don't expect anyone from the Left to understand that. The Left would never listen to the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who are IN those countries, making a difference. The Left would never listen to the boots on the ground who see the country day in and day out. The Left would never listen to the people who are actually THERE, because that would destroy their flimsy little make-believe world about how Iraq is actually a QUAGMIRE!!!!!! But that's why I call liberals the stupidest people on the face of the earth. Because their ignorance is forced upon them by themselves.
Those two thousand people died protecting a way of life that the Left only gives lip-service to. Those two thousand people died to make the world a better place. And those two thousand people died for ideals that have become sneer quote material for the Left. Freedom. Independence. Self-rule.
They died so that Iraqis wouldn't fear being dropped into industrial grade plastic shredders whenever they voiced their opinion.
So yes, I expect to see an orgy of self-congratulation from the Left. I expect to see the Left celebrate those two thousand deaths like it's New Year's Eve. Because when it all comes down to it, the Left isn't anti-war, it's on the other side. But I hope that we on the Right haven't allowed the screaming children of the Left to cloud the meaning of those two thousand deaths.
They died so that others would live."
Perhaps the best response I've heard so far to the whole leftist cant came from a buddy of mine who serves in the army. After being subjected to a ten-minute rant covering pretty much the entire laundry list of DFL talking points, he just smiled and said "I'm glad to hear that, ma'am, because if you have the freedom to say it, I must be doing my job right." His assailant was reduced to spluttering incoherence ... :-)
Steve
Sweet!
"It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived." ~ General George S. Patton, Jr.
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