“magnitude of grief” as you put it is no different for 1 of 500,000 than it is for 1 of 3,333. That dog won’t hunt.”
Well, its not just the pine boxes being put in the ground. Its the wounded casualties that are coming back. Vietnam wasn’t just about 58,000 dead, it was also about the soldiers that were still alive and had the ability to comment on how they thought the war was going.
WWII had millions dead, but it was about the civilized world beating an evil regime, that could actually be defeated, and you get a parade at the end of the day. People are having a hard time buying into continuing an open-ended conflict, which there is no end. And there won’t be. So you have two groups of people, ones that know this, and are not swayed by nightly media grief whores, or the others that just want to call it quits and go home to Boone, North Carolina and trout fish. People, we can celebrate a victory here. The iraqi regime is gone. Lets give the sincere iraqis a chance to be proud of their land. We can’t do it for them, nor should we. There is no worth attained in the welfare mother if she didn’t have to work to get her money. She will only get angry when it get cuts off. Well, its time for the iraqi people to get a job. We’ll help build your international resume’, gets your leaders some decent clothes for interviews, but you are the ones that have to sell yourself to the rest of the world. And right now,....you ain’t looking so good.
You are totally right, and how often does one see it in life - you cannot do more for someone than they are willing to do for themselves.
I myself questioned the motives of the Iraq campaign from the start, and my opinion was that Sadaam Hussein did not hold power in Iraq by accident. There was a widespread acceptance of his methods, and it is not clear if the Iraqis can be, or will be, governed effectively by any other means.