We lost a lot more soldiers in WW2.

[Vanje]

Is this the Talking point of the week?
The war in iraq is A-Okay, because WW2 was so much bigger.
Thats what my boss's boss said at the office Christmas Party this weekend.

within hours after heariing it from her, I heard the same idea stated by a caller on a radio talk show.

[RagingInMiami]

1. But at least in WW II

We went after the right enemy.

[Squatch]

2. It's a case of the sliding benchmark...

When the death toll was around 1000, they equivocated with the death toll of 9-11. "We lost a lot more people on 9-11, so the war in Iraq is OK."

They'll just keep on sliding that benchmark up as the bodies come home.

[thecrow]

13. As in "we lost more people during the black plague"?

God help us if they keep escalating

[tocqueville]

3. nothing compared with Secession War n/t

[joeybee12]

4. Sounds like people got the memo!

Would love to be on that list to see how their tiny little minds actually work!

[kcwayne]

5. We lost a lot more in Viet Nam, and killed a lot more civilians as well

And that war went a long way towards increasing respect for America, and promoting democracy throughout Asia, didn't it?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

6. That's what's wrong in Iraq!! Not enough corpses!

Now I get it. If we can just get more GI's killed off everything is going to be hunky-dunky and we can be "victorious".
Bush and Hillary and Joementum have a plan for "victory". It takes a graveyard to build a victory.

[tanyev]

7. I dare them to say it to the face of a mother, father, wife or husband

of a soldier that has died in this "tiny little war."

[MarianJack]

9. Yes,...

...for Cindy & 100's of others it's 100%!

[TallahasseeGrannie]

8. We lost even more in car accidents

and more than that from AIDS
and about that many (I believe) in Katrina

and it still doesn't make it right.

[zanne]

37. I've heard that argument from freepers, too.

"More people die in car accidents every year". Don't these yahoos know how to add? If we lost 3,000 people in car accidents last year and 2000 people in Iraq, that makes 5,000 dead people, right? Or is math different for freepers?

[MarianJack]

10. In Addition,...

...WWII was a justified war. A "good" war if there can possibly be such a thing.

[Bigmack]

28. If WWII was such a "good" war...

...how come 61% of US troops in WWII were drafted?

I don't even care to debate the concept of "good" wars, I just like to throw that figure around when people are talking about WWII. The American Legion crowd has created the myth of a selfless generation all volunteering to fight to free the world. Bullshit. The US drafted more than enlisted in every year of WWII.

[hadrons]

29. don't forget ration cards ....

gov't had to issue them because people at home REFUSED to volunteerly conserve

[MarianJack]

30. If You had read my whole sentence,...

...you might have noticed that I said a "good" war (notice the captions) and if such a thing is possible.

Yes, most GIs were drafted. This does not take away from the historically verified evil of the nazis. It also does not take away from the service that the GIs performed once in the service.

BTW, my father, his brother, my mother's 3 brothers and my maternal grandfather and my mother's brother-in-law were in the enlistment line on 12/8/41. My maternal grandfather and 2 of my mother's brothers were turned away due to age and health. The others were decorated combat veterans.

I apologize if this does not meet your standards.

[Bigmack]

34. Jeezus... touchy....

my comments directed toward the concept of "good" wars and the myth that everybody enlisted in WWII.

Peace, Marianjack

[MarianJack]

36. You're Right, Bigmack.

I am very proud of my family's efforts in the war. In my father's case, it's one of the few things I am proud of (my father was quite a shit!).

Obviously, war is an immoral and inherently evil thing, but WWII was about as close to a good one as possible, given the evil of the nazis. What this administration does today TOTALLY dishonors the men and women who served then.

WWII. Lots of draftes, but our GI's were a better example of how to behave than what we see from many of those who are torturing now.

Sorry for being a little defensive. Peace back at'cha!

[YOY]

11. Yeah, and as an added bonus the Russians did most of the work!

Damn those Commies!

[Tarc]

12. This has been the talking point of the past year

But Bush apologists such as your boss who are trying to compare this war to wars of past eras do not take into account other factors that greatly reduce war casualties. Much-improved personal armor/protection, advances in battlefield medicine, swift access to trauma teams, and so on. This has saved many who in past conflicts never would've had a chance of survival.

[Atman]

14. WWII we were fighting to save the world. Now we're fighting to fuck it up.

Big difference.

[stepnw1f]

31. Well Said...

Let's bomb.... um..... over there!

[splat@14]

15. So, ask her if that's our goal....to reach the losses of WWII?

[zbdent]

16. In WW2, after 4+ years,

the instigator of the war was dead and the underlings took longer to be brought to justice . . .

Whereas the originator of the attacks on the US in the "War on Terror" (tm) is running around safely and the 1200th "number 2 guy" has been killed . . . after four years . . .

[blogslut]

17. Give your boss a math lesson

2146 divided by 34 = 63 soldier deaths per month

63 divided by 30 = 2 soldier deaths per day

Then tell them that 12 hours from now, another soldier will be dead. By Friday, it will be ten. By December 25, it will be 28. Then say :sarcasm: Merry Christmas :sarcasm:

[laureloak]

18. How do they spread their talking points? n/t

[Liberal In Texas]

25. Apparently there is some organized fax or email that goes out on a

regular basis, or perhaps more frequently if needed, to their friendly media outlets. It probably originates with Rove and is passed down through the ranks. This is how they stay in lock-step and why you hear the same talking points come out of the mouths of Rush, Hannity, and the brain-washed freeper at the office.

See this RawStory post from July:

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Exclusive_GOP_talking_points_on_Rove_seek_to_discre_0712.html

[bemildred]

19. Ask them when they plan to join up. We are short of troops.

And apparently they think it's a good thing to die for "freedom".

[hobbit709]

20. 'In order to hold back the revolution,

we need a small victorious war" V.K. Plehve, the Russian Minister of the Interior remarked in 1904.
History shows how well that went. The neocons think the same way.

[Ready4Change]

21. Is that the goal?

I didn't realize we were shooting for a record.

[AValdoux]

22. WWII was a clash between 2 armies

When you have battles with 100,000+ on each side, the casualties will be higher. You have to look at how many soldiers were deployed. Our 160,000 troops are being attacked by a small band of hit & run enemies. It is not the number of casualties it is how are troops are being utilized. They are sent out as bait to engage small attacks.


AValdoux

[Liberal In Texas]

26. And the theater of war was indeed world-wide. It wasn't concentrated in

some small California-sized country.

Let us not forget that we were attacked by Japan and Germany declared war on us. We didn't attack Argentina in response.

[mmonk]

23. Yes the war's just fine.

Whether a war is good or bad depends on the amount of dead soldiers.

[ComerPerro]

24. Ever notice that its only like WWII when it serves their interests?

"We were attacked on 9/11, just like we were on 12/7 (Pearl Harbor)."
Therefore, this is just like WWII, and anyone who doesn't support this war, by extension, wouldn't have supported WWII and therefore would have supported Hitler.

"We lost more lives in WWII than in Iraq"
Therefore, this isn't nearly as serious as WWII, so stop your bitching.


"We had to go after Saddam, because he was a threat to America. That's why we went after Germany, even though they didn't attack us"
Therefore, attacking Iraq was ok, because the world and our country was in danger. Anyone who says that the war is unnecessary because Iraq didn't attack us would have, by extension, opposed attacking Hitler and Nazi Germany.

"We declared war on Germany, but Germany did not attack us."
Therefore, WWII was partly invalid because we had no reason to attack Germany. Anyone who says we should have attacked Germany but opposes this war is a hypocrite.


It is impossible to honestly hold so many obviously conflicting beliefs at the same time. These people are either idiots or they are deliberate liars.

I believe George Orwell described it best when he labeled this kind of thought process "doublethink"...

[PurityOfEssence]

27. It's not as bad as the biggest disaster in the history of the human race

Let's all dance in the street.

Bob Novak likes to remind us that our economy's in much better shape than it was when he was a kid, too, but forgets to mention that was during the Great Depression.

[AllegroRondo]

32. At this point in WW2,

the Allies had already liberated North Africa, Italy, and most of France, and were pushing Japan back strongly in the Pacific.

At this point in Iraq, the Bush admin is finally trying to come up with a plan for victory.

[baby_mouse]

33. Answer: "Yeah, there was an actual ENEMY in WWII"

:eyes:

Do these people study how to be stupid REALLY REALLY HARD or what?

[RamboLiberal]

35. If it was up to Republicans at time of WWII

we'd all be talking German or Japanese now as the koolaid drinkers put it when trying to paint liberals as the weaklings of that era.

I love how the chickenhawks try to revise history. Thom Hartmann recommended a book a couple of weeks ago that I got and read. Illustrious Dunderheads edited by Rex Stout(of Nero Wolfe fame).

It's fascinating to read all the dunderhead statements mostly by Repukes on how the U.S. should stay of out WWII, how Hitler wasn't a threat, how they hated England, etc. Also he has the voting on major pre-war bills and in every case the Repukes were against anything militarily or in support of Allies that FDR wanted pre-war.

Yet the koolaid drinkers always talk like it was the "lily-livered liberals" that would've kept us out of WWII. The koolaid drinkers need a serious lesson in history!

[hatrack]

38. Remind your boss of the following differences between now and then:

We were fighting in a lot more places in World War II.

We were fighting in dozens of countries - France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Holland, Luxembourg, Burma, the Philippines, the United States and on islands and oceans spanning the globe. Our allies fought in even more regions - India, Russia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, the Baltics, the Kuriles, China.

We had universal military service, which meant that pretty much everybody physically able to fight was going to end up in the military - rich and poor, urban and rural, blue and white collar, for the most part, served side by side.

We had a huge surge of volunteers who swamped recruiting stations in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor.

We had an economy which began moving to a war footing within weeks of the opening of hostilities.

We had rationing and shared sacrifice and everybody did their part - not driving, growing food, recycling scrap metal, buying War Bonds.

We had a tax structure which was far, FAR higher than today's - and no, we weren't cutting taxes in the middle of a war in order to "stimulate the economy".

We were fighting enemies who used the same basic tactical and strategic doctrines as those which informed our military system.

We were not led to invade Japan or Germany because of their supposed possession of weapons systems which posed a threat to our cities - weapons that, it turned out, did not exist. Instead, we invaded Japan because they attacked us militarily and Germany because they declared war on us.

We were not encouraged to believe that our war with Japan and Germany would "pay for itself" or that the German and Japanese civilians would greet our troops with flowers.