If a few thousand dead meant you were losing a war, then we've never won one.
This is all about PR -- showing the war out of context. People have no perspective on the war. I talk to Ds, point out this has been far lower casualty count than Iwo Jima, D-Day, Verdun, Gettysburg, etc, etc.
"You can't compare this to those", I'm told.
So, they have no perspective.
The only thing we've lost is the PR war.
You're right, of course. But I think that's not the criterion by which many of the electorate believe we're "losing." Rightly or wrongly, they infer from what they see as, to be fair, the chaos, that we are losing. Not militarily, but in the ability of us to achieve the stated goal of a self-sustaining, self-reliant, stable "democracy".
"You can't compare this to those", I'm told.
Here is the basis of our loss in the PR war.
Would you feel bad about paying 400,000 for a beautiful beach front mansion in California that's worth a million or more?
How about paying 3,000 for nothing?
That's why people don't see the WWII/Iraq comparison in values.
The reason that the media can do this is that while people admit WWII had a high price, we reaped tremendous benefits by winning, and we could have paid much, much more. In Iraq, they've convinced people that there is no point in us being there, and every life lost compounds the tragedy. It's like being mugged over and over again, one dollar at a time.
The leaders of the GOP better start listening to the base who are not "happy campers." There is a severe shortage of backbone and guts at the head of the Party. That shortage has been apparent since President Reagan left office. RINOs, like McCain, do nothing for the party but turn us into a sick joke. IMO, the Party better start looking for a strong leader ASAP as not one is on the scene right now. The country is at a turning point in our history and strong leadership is our only answer. IMO, Liberal cowards are taking us down the toilet bowl in the blink of an eye.
And that's why it truly is "Bush's fault". I could forgive him his lack of intellect in admiration of his sold core foundation. However, ultimately, it was his lack of historical knowledge in how wars are really fought that has proved to be our undoing in Iraq.
I can't recall a single reference point in 5,000 years of recorded history where a war was successfully fought over "hearts & minds". Rather, the annals of history are replete with accounts of complete annihilation.
Included in this group are the first 3 weeks of the Iraq war itself!
The only way out of Iraq is victory, and the only way to victory is to defeat the enemy wherever they are. In this case, it means hiding behind a civilian population.
If we didn't have the will to pursue the war in this fashion, then we should have never gotten involved. As Smith from Oregon has commented, the way we're (not) prosecuting the war is almost criminal. That's Bush's failing.
Comparisons between Iraq and the previous military campaigns aren't really valid, when you consider that in those wars this country demonstrated that it was willing to go to great lengths to win, come hell or high water -- and PC bullsh!t be damned.