Thursday, June 03, 2004
All about perspective
Andrew Sullivan asks a question on his blog:
But let's cast our minds back even further... If somebody had said in August 1939 that by May 1945 there would be around 60 million dead on every continent, large swaths of Europe and East Asia totally devastated, millions of refugees and displaced people on the roads, whole populations forcibly shifted, whole countries on the verge of starvation, and half of Europe under the communist boot... well, I think you would come to the conclusion that the war had been an extraordinary... failure, too.
I'm not comparing the Second World War to Iraq, God forbid. But it's all about perspective, isn't it?
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"If someone had said in February 2003, that by June 2004, Saddam Hussein would have been removed from power and captured; that a diverse new government, including Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, would be installed; that elections would be scheduled for January 2005; and that the liberation of a devastated country of 25 million in which everyone owns an AK-47 had been accomplished with an army of around 140,000 with a total casualty rate (including accidents and friendly fire) of around 800; that no oil fields had been set aflame; no WMDs had been used; no mass refugee crises had emerged; and no civil war had broken out... well, I think you would come to the conclusion that the war had been an extraordinary success."For his efforts, Andrew got some predictable responses from some of his readers:
"If someone had said in February 2003 that in June 2004 there would be: 140,000 American troops in Iraq, just a smattering of foreign troops, heavy fighting leading to significant monthly casualties... a significant presence of foreign fighters and terrorists... a huge prisoner abuse scandal... no WMD's, no progress in the Israeli-Palestenian conflict... oil prices over $42 a barrel, over $120 billion spent on the war, over 800 soldiers dead, over a hundred American civilians killed in Iraq, over 4000 casualties ... well, I think you would come to the conclusion that the war had been an extraordinary ... failure."Just goes to show that for some people every barrel of oil is only half-full, not to mention bloody expensive.
But let's cast our minds back even further... If somebody had said in August 1939 that by May 1945 there would be around 60 million dead on every continent, large swaths of Europe and East Asia totally devastated, millions of refugees and displaced people on the roads, whole populations forcibly shifted, whole countries on the verge of starvation, and half of Europe under the communist boot... well, I think you would come to the conclusion that the war had been an extraordinary... failure, too.
I'm not comparing the Second World War to Iraq, God forbid. But it's all about perspective, isn't it?
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