War

It’s been mighty difficult to concentrate on this prelab for EE tomorrow... I’ve been watching the TV networks and checking some blogs since the first strike at ~9:30pm EST.  Thank goodness there’s Fox News so I don’t have to watch CNN.  On the net I’ll be checking Little Green Footballs, USS Clueless, and Debka most often.  Here’s a handy map of the middle east.

Some of the more interesting bits so far: US forces have taken over Iraqi radio and are broadcasting on it... in addition to these initial strikes in Iraq, our forces are attacking targets in Afghanistan... in a video aired on Iraqi TV, a spokesman invited any countries who wanted to help Iraq to do so... our cruise missles travel at 700mph and take ~45 minutes to reach Baghdad from the Persian Gulf, ~60 minutes from the Red Sea.

Wednesday on All Things Considered, there was an interview with Max Boot of the Council on Foreign Relations, in which he spoke on the history of casualties of war.  Boot is the author of The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power.  Here’s an excerpt from the interview:

"In 1945 when we were attacking Japan with B-29 bombers, we did not flinch when inflicting hundreds of thousands of casualties on Japanese civilians, and that’s even before the atomic bombs were dropped.  Whereas now, it creates a national scandal if a smart-bomb goes astray and hits a wedding in Afghanistan... In part, this is simply due to the fact that targeting technology is so much more presise and that in 1945 you couldn’t be sure that a bomb would hit within a mile of its target.  Whereas today, you have a very high degree of certainty that precision-guided munitions will hit within a few meters of their target.  So we are much less accepting of civilian casualties, but I think in some sense, we may have set the standard too high.  We have come to think of war as being a surgical business where we only hit the bad guys and leave all the innocent people alone, but it’s never going to be that way.  It’s always going to be a messy, ugly business with innocent people on both sides getting killed, and I think we have to accept that as being the inherent nature of war.  That’s not going to change, no matter how much technology may change."

Also during the show, they mentioned the numbers of US soldiers killed in some of our most recent wars/conflicts:

Korean conflict: 33,000
Viet Nam: 58,000
1991 Gulf War: 147
Panama: 23
Somalia: 43
Balkans: 30
Afghanistan: 47

And finally, since I don’t think I posted about it before... or even if I did... you should watch the video Protesting the Protesters.  It’s about 10 minutes and it’s quite enlightening.  There are a few versions for your viewing pleasure: high-bandwidth Real video or Windows media, or low-bandwidth Real video or Windows media.  And after you watch it, be sure to read the Q & A about the video too, because it has a lot of good information.  Here’s a quote:

1. What inspired you to produce this video?

While watching TV coverage of the peace protests this past January, I noticed a large contingent of signs bearing extreme language that attacked President Bush--insulting him personally, calling him a terrorist, and comparing him to Hitler. At the same time, I didn’t notice any signs criticizing Saddam Hussein. There were no signs asking him to abide by the Gulf War cease-fire agreement or the various U.N. resolutions he’s been violating for over a decade.

Despite the extremist language used by many of the protesters, despite the fact that they seemed to blame President Bush for a crisis caused by twelve years of Iraqi noncompliance, the media portrayed the protesters as mainstream. This must mean the media perceives as mainstream the notion that Bush and Hitler are similar. The media also apparently perceives as mainstream the notion that, to resolve this conflict, nothing should be asked of Saddam Hussein.

...

Frankly, I was angered that the media glossed over the obvious extremism within the protests. I was angered that the media would not challenge--or at least examine--the mentality of the people comparing President Bush to Adolf Hitler. And I was angered that the supposedly mainstream marchers seemed unwilling to acknowledge the extremism of their comrades.

So, I decided that, at the next protest, I would show a truth of the protesters that was going unreported by the traditional media.

2. What is your background in producing videos of this nature?

None. This was the first time I’d ever attempted it.

It’s good to see a balanced view of the protesters, as opposed to the one-sided presentation
that the media has been showing.