War? What war?

We've been in peril before, but it was obvious

While we were waiting for our plane in Ft. Wayne, IN yesterday to return to Germany, I noticed a series of nice display cases. Among them were several WWII aviation displays. These displays included several old newspapers like the one above. A couple of things struck me about the newspapers.

1) The news early on was nearly all bad but the media hunted out the good news. Look at the paper above. Oil refineries at Santa Barbara had been shelled by a Japanese sub. But that little tidbit shares the headline with FDR’s vow of victory. Military lines everywhere were “yielding” but only for a time before taking the offensive. One would be hard pressed to find any such balance in today’s war on terror.

The situation in Iraq is about 180 out from where we were in 1941. By any realistic standard, we have been largely successful in Iraq. Yet you have to dig and dig to find any good news coming out of Iraq. Have mistakes been made – absolutely. But by historic comparison they are inconsequential. There are literally a million examples of military blunders. Here are just a couple:

A) On 20 November, 1943 the Marines started their attack on the lagoon at Tarawa 09:00, later than expected, and found themselves stuck on a reef some 500 yards off shore. The Japanese, hiding in deep shelters during the bombardment, quickly manned their guns when the naval fire was lifted to allow the Marines to move ashore. The Japanese let loose with a murderous fire on the Marines wading ashore across 500 yards of waist deep water. On 23 November the island was secured. Japanese casualties were about 4,690 killed in action. Marines suffered about 1,000 killed in action, and a further 2,200 wounded.

B) In Vietnam we allowed political expediency to trump military necessity. We never mobilized our reserve forces. McNamara’s whiz kids used body counts as a strategic metric for victory. The chief targeting officer was the Commander in Chief himself LBJ who ignored strategic targets (levies, dams, political leadership etc.) in the north to bomb the same bombed out ammo dumps over and over requiring the bombers to use same ingress and egress routes, which made them easy pickings for communist anti-aircraft gunners like Jane Fonda.

These were monumental blunders that cost thousands upon thousands of American casualties. By comparison Iraq has gone remarkably smooth.

2) The second thing that struck me was contrasting America’s war footing in 1941 with our war footing today. In 1941, it was obvious that America was at war. It was obvious what was required to win the war. It was obvious what was at stake. Today, only half the country thinks we are at war. Only half of those who think we are at war, have any idea of what is required to win that war. And only half of those who have an idea of what is required win have an idea of what is at stake. We are a bit long here so Lex’ll look at this theory of halves next week.