Iraq Death Watch: When Did We Become Casualty Averse?
"Time to reflect as Iraq toll hits 3,000." "New Year Brings 3000th US death in Iraq." So read the headlines the last weekend of 2006, as makeshift memorials sprung up around the country and protests made the evening news. Cindy Sheehan, I'm sure, is very proud. My question, though, is this: when did Americans become so averse to war casualties, and more importantly, why did it happen?
We, as a society, were not always so upset at the loss of American soldiers in combat. In World War II we absorbed over 400,000 deaths, with 20,000 in the one month Battle of the Bulge (Hitler's ill-fated Ardennes Offensive) alone. In Korea, we suffered 54,000 dead and in Vietnam the total was 58,000. Both the Second World War and the Korean Conflict saw much higher casualty rates per day for a period of time roughly equivalent to the current war in Iraq.
Somewhere between the end of the Vietnam War in 1973 (technically U.S. military personnel were still in the country until 1975, but in small numbers) and the end of the first year of conflict in Iraq in early 2004, we as a nation decided that we were opposed to the casualties inherent in an extended combat environment.
According to a Gallup poll in September of 2005, 55% of Americans favored a withdrawal from Iraq because of the losses we were incurring there. A recent Associated Press article quoted a Public Agenda poll that found "An overwhelming majority-84%--worry that the war is causing too many casualties." So what happened?
Really, it's quite simple I think. Americans got accustomed to quick, painless victories that incurred minimal loss of life among members of the U.S. military. We invaded Grenada in 1983, with only 19 casualties. Then, in 1989 we invaded Panama in pursuit of Manuel Noriega with only 24 service members killed in action. But the one that really changed the American mindset was the Persian Gulf War, better known as Operation Desert Storm, in 1991.
For the first time since Vietnam, the American public watched in anticipation as the U.S. military deployed more than 500,000 troops to Southwest Asia to take on Saddam Hussein and evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait. We watched "Nintendo" warfare as smart bombs and precision guided missiles seamlessly slipped into windows and air shafts to take out designated targets with minimal civilian and U.S. casualties. After only 100 hours the ground offensive came to a halt, with Iraq in retreat and an incredibly low 148 U.S. battle deaths.
What has happened is that we have been conditioned by our superior technology and our superpower status, both of which give us insurmountable advantages over conventional enemies, to believe that we can just go into a country, clean up a mess, and then come home with an absolute minimum number of casualties.
This conditioning has misled us, though. All the technology and firepower in the world will never change the fact that war is an ugly business. In combat, people die. Period. We became accustomed to easy wins against traditional armies with uniforms and front lines.
When those customs of war disappeared, and we were faced with an enemy indistinguishable from ordinary civilians and cowardly anonymous attacks from roadside bombs, we were shocked back into reality. It is actually good for the American conscience that this has happened the way it has. Perhaps we will once again gain an appreciation for the true costs of war, and focus on the lives and sacrifices of the brave men and women who volunteer to fight our nation's battles instead of worrying about what number we are on.
Published by Greg Reeson
I am a Featured Writer for The New Media Journal and a The Veteran's Voice. I also regularly contribute to GOPUSA and The Land of the Free. View profile
- Bob Woodruff Speaks Out for Brain-Injured Iraq War VeteransNewscaster Bob Woodruff suffered a traumatic brain injury from a bomb blast, while on assignment in Iraq. He is back to tell his story, and to speak out for the Iraq War veterans with traumatic brain injury, who are...
- Time to Make a Move In IraqThis piece illustrates the urgency of one American searching for a way out of Iraq. In most cases timetables and war don't mix, but the current U.S. situation in Iraq may be an exception.
- How to Get Out of Iraq: A ProposalWith escalating violence in Iraq, many believe it is time to consider US withdrawal. What is the best course of action for the US to pursue as it approaches this question? This paper highlights three options, and the...
- The Solution for IraqSo what's the solution? Keep U.S. troops there for another ten years? There's even talk of dividing Iraq into three separate countries now, which is not acceptable to anyone who doesn't want this effort lost.
- Iraq Nam: Part IHas a conventional army ever defeated a guerilla-structured insurgency? Has America learned its lessons from the Viet Nam conflict? Can the United States prevail in the Iraq conflict?
- TV Networks Watch Death Closely: Terri Schiavo, Pope John Paul II, Six Feet Under
- War Without End: For Many Soldiers Returning from Iraq, the War Continues at Home
- Book Review: "The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell: An Accidental Soldier's Account...
- US Army Third Infantry Heading to Iraq Sooner Than Expected
- The End of Al-Qaeda in Iraq - the Unheralded Victory
- Anbar Salvation Council Rises to Challenge Islamic Council of Iraq
- Associated Press Cameraman Killed in Iraq
22 Comments
Post a CommentEspecially despicable is the fact that all the Bush adminsitration is doing now is trying to "run out the clock", so to speak. There is no evidence that more troops will accomplish anything for what is esentially a poltical dilemma. All they are doing is putting more troops out there as targets in order to give an impression that there is still hope for some sort of victory. Keep in mind that teh supporters of this occupation have been wrong about almost every single thing and we have had "surges" before that only escalated teh violence. Their only hope in increasing troop levels is that they can hold out long enough to pass this off to teh next president. If it is a Democrat, the right will then begin to rewrite history and blame the Iraq debacle on that Democratic guy/gal. People need to wake up and realize we are far too often played as pawns.
I'd just like to emphatically endorse what Xavier is driving at and expand a bit. The Iraq invasion was an attempt to create a free market paradise for the wealthy and ruling class, which is why the very first actions of the CPA were to pretty much open the country to investment. Right now they are in the process of ensuring that oil corps get ridonculous contracts for Iraq's oil. This list goes on and on... But none of this had anything to do liberating Iraqi's, or WMD, or democracy--it had to do with economic domination of the region and its resources. Saddam became uncooperative with that agenda, which was also the underlying purpose of the Gulf War in 90'. I think that with time people start to at least catch a glimpse of these realities, especially as the body count builds, and despite the compulsion to be "patriotic" and "support the troops" which is generated by the right wing and the war profiteer culture. We are slowly evolving.
National Intrest(Should we go to war or not?) is vested in the National econcomy, which in turn, is directly tied to the intrests of the Rich and Powerful. Has the Federal Goverment ever supported a conflict that directly benefits the poor?
A brief perspective on American history: Our country has been created with the aid of "...black labor, white labor, Chinese labor, European immigrant labor, female labor each [rewarded] differently by race, sex, nationional origin, and social class, in such a way as to create separate levels of oppression-a skillful terracing to stabilize the pyramid of wealth." (A People's History of the United States Howard Zinn p. 247)
Scott, I used to subscribe to the notion that we would tolerate casualties if the cause was just. I don't buy that anymore. I believe we have been conditioned to expect too much. No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy, so to expect quick and easy in any combat situation is just idiotic, whether we were told it would be that way or not. I would wager that if we had lost 3K in Afghanistan, the public would be calling for a pullout, despite the direct link to 9/11.
Quote, "I guess the difference between dying and dying for nothing is lost on some people." That is the real question. I see the potential for avoiding future conflicts if Iraq becomes a stable democracy. If we do indeed stay the course, could that not change "Black Down" imaged the US has?
You're right, under the right conditions, we are very casualty averse. 1) We were given the impression the war would be quick and painless. This of course make us less tolerant when we see we were misled (ie the war has not been quick or painless). 2) Initially, we thought this war would increase our security (WMD's for instance). We're starting to realize that the war isn't increasing our security, which lowers the benefits side of the cost-benefit analysis. Don't worry, once there's an aggresive superpower (not us though) that invades its neighbors (Hitler/WW2) and truly threatens us, we Americans will not be casualty averse. It's not that Americans won't accept costs (casualties). It's just that the costs are not looking good against the benefits.
also paul, references to past conflicts (WWII, or whatever) DO INDEED hold water because without the perspective of history it's impossible to intelligently debate current events.
paul said>> "Necessary or worthwhile conflicts naturally have more support.">> Incorrect sir. Exhibit A: Clinton's war on Iraq in 1998 (where he promised to remove saddam and set up a new gov't) Was very popular, on the order of 74% approval. Exhibit B: The American Revolution (war for Independence) was NOT popular. America ran out of money and there is a touching story of how George Washington's troops all planned to quit fighting because they weren't being paid and needed to support their families. It was said by historians that Washington put on a pair of glasses, and when the troops looked at him, they realized he was just a man in the same situation as them, and they stayed. Consequently they won perhaps the most important war in American history; a war that was not popular.
by the way--hello Greg--good work generating some discussion