Elder care obligations have kept me on the run this week, but I see that Jonah Goldberg left his mark on the Los Angeles Times Opinion page yesterday. So did my parakeet, but Jonah clearly outperformed her by managing to cover twice as many column inches while still working with the same basic materials.
(Okay, I admit, now I’m just cherry-picking the juiciest fruits of stupidity.)
ONE THOUSAND three hundred and forty seven days.Jonah’s head has now officially been up his ass longer than America was involved in World War II.
That’s how long the United States was involved in combat in World War II, and Monday, the U.S. passed that “grim military milestone,” as one TV anchor called it. This factoid has become a fixture of respectable talking points about the futility of the Iraq war. Newscasters and pundits note its gravity with sober foreboding and slight head-shaking.And when Jonah wants to talks about “grotesque stupidity,” it’s like a bearded sea captain in a yellow sou’wester who wants to tell you about his 3 Way Chowder and Bisque Sampler. Trust the Gorton’s Fisherman.
The only thing they don’t note is the grotesque stupidity of the comparison.
Let us start with the obvious. World War II may have lasted 1,347 days, but it cost the lives of 406,000 Americans and wounded 600,000 more. Losses among Allied civilians and military personnel stretched into the tens of millions. Whole cities were razed, populations displaced, economies shattered.All that and it still took less time than George Bush’s Outward Bound excursion to Baghdad.
The number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq remains much less than 1% of our WWII losses.Amazing! Unless you continue with the obvious, and observe that we have roughly 135,000 troops in Iraq, while there were over 16 million men and women in the Armed Forces during World War II.
World War II ended when the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japanese cities, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. Were it not for those grave measures, the war might have lasted for another year or two and cost many more lives. So maybe those wielding the WWII yardstick as a cudgel would prefer we gave Sadr City and Tikrit the Hiroshima-Nagasaki treatment?Well, Jonah promised grotesque stupidity, but I have to say, he delivered well beyond my wildest dreams. This is the H-Bomb of Strawman Arguments, and earns the coveted Order of the Wicker Man with Screaming Christopher Lee Cluster:
That would surely root out even the most die-hard insurgents and shorten the war.Yeah, I can’t see any of the other Sunni and Shiite communities in the region getting all worked up just because we expunged a couple of Sunni and Shiite cities in Iraq with nuclear weapons. Tony Snow might have to take a little chin music at the next presser, but I predict it would be a 24 hour story, tops.
The phase of the Iraq war that was comparable to World War II ended in less than three weeks.That would the phase where we weren’t sucking like Jeff Gannon on an overbooked holiday weekend.
Remember “shock and awe”?Yeah. Principally, I remember that it sounded pretty stupid. But now – and I gotta admit, props to Jonah – it sounds grotesquely stupid.
As far as such things go, the conventional war put WWII to shame.Yeah, all the Allies had to do in WWII was to fight a multi-front war spanning the globe from Scandinavia to the South Pacific. In Iraq, we had to fight our way from Kuwait City to Baghdad, a distance of 344 miles! (And it sounds even more impressive when you count it in kilometers!)
the U.S. military victory was akin to defeating all of Italy in less than a month.Wellll…If you don’t count the fact that Italy was muddy, mountainous, and defended by both Fascist troops and a well-equipped, battle-hardened German Army that didn’t collapse at the first sound of gunfire, then yeah. Sure.
The current phase of the Iraq war — whether we call it post-occupation, reconstruction, civil war or whatever — is really a separate war.Donald Rumsfeld’s greatest innovation: The Modular War. Today…Iraq. Tomorrow…Ikea!
It’s at once a Hobbesian nightmare in which chaos rules as well as a complex, multi-front battle between various regional factions and their proxies.I can see why Jonah is so prone to defend it. Who wouldn’t want to hop on some of that sweet action?
But as insurgencies go, it hasn’t lasted very long at all or cost very many American lives.At least, it hasn’t killed any of the people Jonah meets for crumble cake and vanilla mocha lattes at Starbucks.
The man who probably deserves the most credit for the low number of American deaths in Iraq is Donald H. Rumsfeld. The outgoing Defense secretary decided from the outset that U.S. forces would have a “light footprint” and would opt for surgical efficiency over the kitchen-sink approach that characterized World War II.Jonah has a point. If there’s one gripe I have with our strategy in WWII, it’s that we simply had too many men. It wasn’t sporting, and it made us look like big insecure bullies. Imagine how much more respectfully the Nazis would have received us if, instead of rolling into Germany with 3 separate armies and millions of troops, we’d tried to occupy them with, say, 150,000? Now that would have been a fight! Face it, people like to get their money’s worth; nobody likes a knockout in the first round. And if we’d only followed the Rumsfeldian “light footprint” doctrine, why, we might still be fighting the Nazis today. Just imagine the pay-per-view possibilities!
Rumsfeld’s way is better, at least on paper. All else being equal, it’s better to have a long war with fewer casualties than a short war with more of them. That’s why the World War II comparison is so frivolous: Days don’t cost anything, lives do.Except when we’re losing 2 or 3 or 4 lives per day, every day we stay in Iraq. But who cares? Sands through the hourglass, and all that.
Given the enormous scope of World War II, it was a remarkably short war. (Just think of the Hundred Years War by comparison.)Given the enormous amount of traffic it carries, Fifth Avenue is a remarkably short street. (Just think of the Pan-American Highway. Or the distance from the Sun to Uranus.)
(Okay, I admit, now I’m just cherry-picking the juiciest fruits of stupidity.)
Indeed, when partisans claim that the American people are fed up and want our troops home, they’re deliberately muddying the waters.Which Jonah objects to on principle, except when he’s using your Jacuzzi.
The American people have never objected to far-flung deployments of our troops. We’ve had soldiers stationed all over the world for decades.Not getting shot at and blown up on a daily basis, but still…They’re definitely out of earshot.
What the American people don’t like is losing — lives or wars. After all, you don’t hear many people complaining that we still have troops in Japan and Germany more than 20,000 days later.Even though you can’t get from Tempelhof to the Unter den Linden without your taxi getting hulled by a .50 sniper rifle or dismantled by an IED, people still support our occupation of Berlin. See? It’s all just a matter of perspective. Grotesquely. Stupid. Perspective.
Just when I think a man cannot be more obtuse than his last op-ed piece proved, Jonah steps up to the plate and knocks it out of Edison’s Densely Obtuse Park.
“or cost very many American lives”
I’m sure that the three families from my county who lost their kids or my cousin’s son who just got back and saw more than his share of death will be relieved to know that. Jonah, you’re a fucking piece of shit.
I’m sure that the three families from my county who lost their kids or my cousin’s son who just got back and saw more than his share of death will be relieved to know that. Jonah, you’re a fucking piece of shit.
(Okay, I admit, now I’m just cherry-picking the juiciest fruits of stupidity.)
Don’t stop on our account.
Sheesh, Jonah Goldberg and history. You can pretty much throw a dart at the paper and hit something he gets wrong.
To begin: he picked up the Yahoo News! story, or something similar, and copied down the casualty figures. Which amounts to a week’s research for him under ordinary circumstances. But the fact is that the 406,000 killed is total military deaths, combat and non-combat. The combat figure is 292,131. This is not important in terms of the sacrifices men and women made–a lot of people who come home “uninjured” have their lives changed forever nonetheless–but for Jonah’s macabre alegbra it’s of some importance. Non-combat deaths in WWII were mostly from disease, mostly in jungle environments. We do not have anything like that problem in Iraq.
It’s true, the raw figure for combat deaths is less than 1%. It’s 0.85%. It’s also true that the total number of troops in theatre in Iraq is just 1.3% the size of our WWII forces. Making those KIA numbers look a little more significant, especially given the relative scope of the task.
This is somewhat misleading. The WWII-era army was considerably less automated, less lethal, and men served for the duration. But that’s the point–it’s a stupid and misleading comparison in the first place.
It’s no surprise Jonah omits non-mortal casualties–they weren’t printed out for him in the article. But then those of us who actually give a shit about lives wasted in combat understand that the incredible advancement in combat medicine has meant that many many injuried soldiers are saved who would have died even in Vietnam. So much so that with 1.3% of the troops we had in WWII we’ve suffered 6.9% of the non-mortal casualties. (Those interested in the history of science might recall that penicillin was not available in quantity until around the time of D-Day.)
One of the saddest things about this whole sad enterprise is that we knew ahead of time that this cannon-fodder approach to the people who do the fighting, the killing, and the suffering was precisely the attitude of the human flotsam, like Jonah Goldberg, who were most anxious to get it all started so they could celebrate their political ascendancy. But we seem to have to learn the lesson over and over again.
One more historical note: in WWII, like the Great War before it, we were quick and relentless in uncovering and punishing war profiteers. Would we would start doing so now. Would the Doughy Pantload take his rightful place on the list.
Don’t stop on our account.
Sheesh, Jonah Goldberg and history. You can pretty much throw a dart at the paper and hit something he gets wrong.
To begin: he picked up the Yahoo News! story, or something similar, and copied down the casualty figures. Which amounts to a week’s research for him under ordinary circumstances. But the fact is that the 406,000 killed is total military deaths, combat and non-combat. The combat figure is 292,131. This is not important in terms of the sacrifices men and women made–a lot of people who come home “uninjured” have their lives changed forever nonetheless–but for Jonah’s macabre alegbra it’s of some importance. Non-combat deaths in WWII were mostly from disease, mostly in jungle environments. We do not have anything like that problem in Iraq.
It’s true, the raw figure for combat deaths is less than 1%. It’s 0.85%. It’s also true that the total number of troops in theatre in Iraq is just 1.3% the size of our WWII forces. Making those KIA numbers look a little more significant, especially given the relative scope of the task.
This is somewhat misleading. The WWII-era army was considerably less automated, less lethal, and men served for the duration. But that’s the point–it’s a stupid and misleading comparison in the first place.
It’s no surprise Jonah omits non-mortal casualties–they weren’t printed out for him in the article. But then those of us who actually give a shit about lives wasted in combat understand that the incredible advancement in combat medicine has meant that many many injuried soldiers are saved who would have died even in Vietnam. So much so that with 1.3% of the troops we had in WWII we’ve suffered 6.9% of the non-mortal casualties. (Those interested in the history of science might recall that penicillin was not available in quantity until around the time of D-Day.)
One of the saddest things about this whole sad enterprise is that we knew ahead of time that this cannon-fodder approach to the people who do the fighting, the killing, and the suffering was precisely the attitude of the human flotsam, like Jonah Goldberg, who were most anxious to get it all started so they could celebrate their political ascendancy. But we seem to have to learn the lesson over and over again.
One more historical note: in WWII, like the Great War before it, we were quick and relentless in uncovering and punishing war profiteers. Would we would start doing so now. Would the Doughy Pantload take his rightful place on the list.
One sentence really jumped out at me: “All else being equal, it’s better to have a long war with fewer casualties than a short war with more of them.”
I seem to have misplaced my Hundred Years War casualty figures, but I’d be willing to bet extremely large amounts of money that it “cost the lives” (I’ve always loved that construction) of fewer than 406,000 Americans. Not to mention the tens of millions of other deaths. (Jonah is kind enough to limit his statistics just to the good guys.)
I’m not even going to try to understand what he means by “all else being equal”, but on whatever cosmic scale he’s designed, apparently the Hundred Years War is “better” than World War II.
Good to know.
I seem to have misplaced my Hundred Years War casualty figures, but I’d be willing to bet extremely large amounts of money that it “cost the lives” (I’ve always loved that construction) of fewer than 406,000 Americans. Not to mention the tens of millions of other deaths. (Jonah is kind enough to limit his statistics just to the good guys.)
I’m not even going to try to understand what he means by “all else being equal”, but on whatever cosmic scale he’s designed, apparently the Hundred Years War is “better” than World War II.
Good to know.
Because, yeah. Necessary wars for actual reasons, stupid unnecessary wars fought over nothing that don’t accomplish anything either, why split hairs. Bottom line, wars are cool in general and who cares about the cannon fodder or the residents of the country that we randomly elected to tear apart.
So maybe those wielding the WWII yardstick as a cudgel would prefer we gave Sadr City and Tikrit the Hiroshima-Nagasaki treatment?
Jonah is liking numbers today, so I’ll trot one out: There are 270 million people in the U.S., and 269,999,999 of them would not write something that stupid in a nationally syndicated column.
Jonah is liking numbers today, so I’ll trot one out: There are 270 million people in the U.S., and 269,999,999 of them would not write something that stupid in a nationally syndicated column.
As a taxpayer, I’d like a refund on the portion of public moneys spent to educate Mr Goldberg.
You know, Jonah, the current rationalization for Operation Enduring Clusterfuck is that we were trying to liberate the Iraqis, and the theory currently goes that the insurgents are terrorists, not, you know, standup voting Iraqi citizens, who apparently are just delighted to have us there and painting schools. As such, at the very least, the dead Iraqi civilians count as “war dead” anyway. Unless you’d like to admit that this is an invasion and an occupation and a war of oppression against the civilian population of a country that was not threatening us in any way?
You know, Jonah, the current rationalization for Operation Enduring Clusterfuck is that we were trying to liberate the Iraqis, and the theory currently goes that the insurgents are terrorists, not, you know, standup voting Iraqi citizens, who apparently are just delighted to have us there and painting schools. As such, at the very least, the dead Iraqi civilians count as “war dead” anyway. Unless you’d like to admit that this is an invasion and an occupation and a war of oppression against the civilian population of a country that was not threatening us in any way?
World-O-Crap… I just wanted to say you people are good. I sent a friend up in Quebec the links to your review of Zardoz and she laughed so hard that she wanted to watch the movie again. But I’m not lending my DVD to anybody.
If ever there was a column needing the WoC treatment, it is this one:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53191
The most amazing part is that the author could have found enough time in those breaks between marathon sessions of watching Red Dawn and masturbating to write it.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53191
The most amazing part is that the author could have found enough time in those breaks between marathon sessions of watching Red Dawn and masturbating to write it.
That column was so stupid it may have bent space and time, and as a result the Doughy Pantload may be floating through space…
Never mind. It’s all good.
Never mind. It’s all good.
Your deft chracterization of Pantload covering the same amount of newsprint with the “same basic materials” as your parakeet made me roar with appreciative laughter.
Oh G-d, oh mercy, just a tossed-off line like that makes me a bit more comfortable that idiots like Jonah have cozy op-ed nooks–as long as there’s YOU and my few other favorite bloggers to deftly cut these blowhards’ carotid arteries. Sadly, cuts are made only in cyberspace…
Oh G-d, oh mercy, just a tossed-off line like that makes me a bit more comfortable that idiots like Jonah have cozy op-ed nooks–as long as there’s YOU and my few other favorite bloggers to deftly cut these blowhards’ carotid arteries. Sadly, cuts are made only in cyberspace…
but I see that Jonah Goldberg left his mark on the Los Angeles Times Opinion page yesterday. So did my parakeet, but Jonah clearly outperformed her by managing to cover twice as many column inches while still working with the same basic materials.
considering that the doughy pantload is several orders of magnitude larger than your parakeet, you should offer her services to the LATimes as an opportunity to insource. even money sez she’ll even work for less than the DP
considering that the doughy pantload is several orders of magnitude larger than your parakeet, you should offer her services to the LATimes as an opportunity to insource. even money sez she’ll even work for less than the DP
but the 100 Years War inspired some damn good Shakespeare. WWII inspired, ok, “Saving Private Ryan” but also “Hogan’s Heroes” and “McCale’s Navy” so its record is mixed…
Best. Title. Of all time.
Sweet Lordy-Gordy, I lose my Internet service for three days, and THIS is what I come back to?
Have mercy!
Have mercy!
*nudges Serge* Book. Book good. Good gift, also. Link, on home page. Back and to the left. Back, and to the left. Back, and to the left.
That sounds familiar, somehow.
That sounds familiar, somehow.
D.Sidhe… Oh, I already have the book. But you’re right, my feminist-SF-writer-who-has-way-too-many-cats buddette up in Quebec would love it. I’d better call my friendly-neighborhood Borders tomorrow.
Goldberg gets paid for this.
He gets paid for this.
HE! GETS! PAID! FOR! THIS!!!!!!
He gets paid for this.
HE! GETS! PAID! FOR! THIS!!!!!!
Yes, that is a scary thought, Christopher. Here’s a scarier one: the person who thought paying Jonah to write was a good idea, still has a job.
Yeah, but, Bill, it’s likely to be someone who’s related to Jonah, so it’s not necessarily someone who thought it would be a good idea, maybe just someone who wanted to make him stop moping around Thanksgiving dinner.
Serge, I actually figured you did, since you’re a regular here and presumably knew all about it, but it seemed like the best chance I was ever going to get to use that joke. I should have resisted, probably.
Serge, I actually figured you did, since you’re a regular here and presumably knew all about it, but it seemed like the best chance I was ever going to get to use that joke. I should have resisted, probably.
Let’s all chip in and buy Jonah a nice cuttlebone for his cage!
…it seemed like the best chance I was ever going to get to use that joke. I should have resisted…
And resistance is futile. OK, I should have resisted that one.
And resistance is futile. OK, I should have resisted that one.
Mr. Goldberg .. err .. umm .. err .. reminds me of back at the Univ. at Maine at Orono in 1984 and the delightful “college republicans” who went on endlessly about how apartheid was actually “good” for black people in South Africa and anything else but “good things” about apartheid was just venomous, wicked Soviet disinformation and propaganda designed to enslave our tender, naive ears.
Oh yes. I forgot. The entire at-home apologia for the Vietnam War consisted of the same “numbers” game Mr. Goldberg lectures on like a Nazi Emeril/Martha Stewart morph cooking meth while snorting rails of PCP before a live studio audience of lobotomized Third Reich octagenarians and hang gliding accident victims. It was all about the “kill ratio” and they had pie charts and bar graphs showing how the “kill ratio” in Vietnam was far better than WW II and somehow this actually meant “we” were winning and “they” were losing and this “proved” the Vietnam War was definitely “going way better” than World War II; and was actually, if you look at the numbers, possibly the most successful and spectacular goddamned war in the history of all humankind, so why mess with such great f-ing success?
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