Is it useful to track the time involved to reach 2000 dead in Vietnam, against the vector for Iraq? (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/10/10/2_000/ day pass may be required)
Interesting quote from that article:
After Vietnam, the military reorganized to restrict politicians from engaging in another unpopular war. In what's called the Abrams Doctrine, after Gen. Creighton Abrams, Pentagon brass backed active-duty fighting units with reserve units, or weekend warriors, for transportation and other logistical support in a big ground war. It was basic politics: The Pentagon figured a president would be reluctant to mobilize waves of weekend warriors from across the American heartland without broad public support. "The logic was to compel the president to carefully evaluate the political price before undertaking a Vietnam-scale military deployment," Kennedy says.
Since then, rapid advancements in military technology have allowed the United States to dispatch an exponentially more lethal, but smaller, all-volunteer force. "What was supposed to be the restraining logic behind the Abrams doctrine has been seriously attenuated," Kennedy says.
seriously attenuated by Rumsefled's reptilian brain. blech.
,a
That is the same logic some have used to reintroduce discussion of the draft. That is, if there is a draft, then more people will care and thus more people will try to put on the brakes.
Posted by: binky at October 26, 2005 04:34 PM | PERMALINK