You write "If Iraq presented similar tactical opportunities, a clearly defined enemy, oppressed peoples who longed to be free of a tyrant, and a similarly focussed American President, then there is no doubt that our military again would be empowered to assess the situation accurately and to execute a winning strategy with heroism and skill."

I am certain that our soldiers still exhibit incredible heroism and skill, far beyond that shown by the administration, the disgraceful Republican Congress and large sections of the Democratic Party. But one seismic difference between World War II and today was the moral clarity and transparency of the undertaking then (with clear American goals) and the sleazy, corrupt, and dishonest war policy of Bush and his war party .

Americans supported the war in large numbers. Americans do not support the occupation. There is a profound difference. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans seem to grasp that. By referring to the occupation as a war and the end of the occupation as a retreat (or cutting and running), the Republicans are grossly misrepresenting the facts on the ground and the attitudes of the American people.

Gettysburg, you seem oblivious to the obvious. I think even my big toe understood what Snow was implying, but do try to think beyond the formal analogy. Here is a news flash, Gettysburg. In World War II we had a draft, the nation mobilized for war, GM was threatened with nationalization or at least national controls if it didn't gear up for war production, ration cards were used, war bonds were sold, politicians' sons and relatives prominently served. Even you Gettysburg when your fascination with the similarity ends might fill in a few thousand differences. Determination and steadfastness necesary for victory? In which combat weren't they? So why bother with an analogy harking back to World War II, the ancient Greeks steadfastly turned the Persians back at Marathon and the stout Brits under Henry V defeated the French with determination. Hey, Iraq is just like ancient Greece and medieval England.

Corrupt, right wing government losing in a war of aggression, desperately trying to hang on...

GMTA! That was my first take, too!

I like it very much. And thanks for the Godwin reference which I hadn't known.

Gettysburgh, please read the above comment and try to undersand why your proclaimed "love of history" seems absurd. You have absolutely NO objectivity, but self-deluders are hopeless to argue with.

Hint: that's you.

Jan Knaus

Gettysburg once again shows the shoddy educational results for graduates from self-described prestigious institutions of higher learning.

The Battle of Cannae was a set piece battle between Hannibal's army and the more numerous Romans. Hannibal knew the Romans were attacking and the Romans made no bones about the fact they were on the offensive.

The Battle of the Bulge was a surprise attack on the Allied forces. Air power, exhaustion and an huge advantage in men and materiel defeated the Germans. Hannibal succeeded with a numerical inferiority in a set piece battle against Rome, Germany failed in a surprise attack against more numerous and powerful Allied forces. There is no parallel.

Neither battle bears any similarity to the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Indeed! We shall finally turn the corner on October 25th of this year, and then we will all need new shoes.

"He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named..."

And the evidence that "the odds seemed long" to the American public during the Battle of the Bulge is...where, Gettysburg? Do you ever get tired of just making stuff up to support your beloved Republican party?

Honesty isn't particularly important.
-- Gettysburg 4/11/06

BBchove and CVilleDem, just to let you know, the 2s came from me -- your comments seemed to attack Gettysburg personally, rather than the positions he espoused. 

PSA: There is a Users' Help Forum.

BBOCHOVE

My post was merely an attempt to clarify Snow's remarks. That you and most other bloggers here have quite literally failed in both your historical translation and contemporary interpretation of the Press Secretary's comments is not my fault; it is yours.

J. McCutchen "JmacSF"

San Francisco. CA

Yea Tony Snow's full of crap..so what else is new in BushVille these days from days gone by?

THis is off topic but I am SO SICK of the Greatest Generation I could hurl.  Not that they weren't great. Not that D-Day to the Battle of the Bulge to Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Leyte, Midway etc etc weren't great military feats.

But hey..The Big One WWII was won on Russian blood and American Spam....

 Here's the top 10 ever, top 9 - Great Patriotic War

Bloodiest Battles in History
 800,000–1,600,000 - Battle of Stalingrad (1942–1943)
670,000–1,500,000 - Siege of Leningrad (1941–1944)
700,000 - Battle of Moscow (1941–1942)
400,000–680,000 - Battle of Kiev (1941)
500,000 - Battle of Smolensk (1941)
370,000 - Battle of Voronezh (1942)
370,000 - Battle of Belarus (1941)
175,000–350,000 - Operation Bagration (1944)
230,000–350,000 - Battle of Kursk (1943)
300,000 - Battle of the Somme (1916)

What no one has mentioned so far is that Snow's analogy is totally off the mark as to the time frames he's trying to get us to equate. As Josh mentioned over at TalkingPointsMemo.com

The Battle of the Bulge began in the middle of December 1944. And it was over by the end of January 1945. So the whole thing lasted less than six weeks. It must have been an eternity for the American and British soldiers in this incredibly hard-fought battle in sub-zero temperatures. But in terms of time, or what Snow terms 'impatience', it's simply not comparable to the last three years in Iraq.

So how anyone can say the comparison Snow tried to make is valid is beyond me. It reminds me of the lyrics to the Sam Cooke song "What A Wonderful World": Don't Know Much About His-to-ry. Yeah, we know Snow doesn't know anything about history. But why does he have to open his mouth and advertise it?

Wow, the Invasion of Iraq is at 250,000, give or take, if you count the Iraqi civilians (and why wouldn't you). That puts it in the list close to the Battle of Kursk or Operation Bagration. And we're still counting!

I'll bet Georgie's mommy and daddy are real proud of him. I wonder what God tells him when Gee Dubya speaks to him?

Does this mean the trip to Graceland is off?

I was just remarking today how we don't hear about the "Coalition of the Willing" anymore. Remember when that was the Little Shrub's favorite retort? Ah, the good old days. Another spin move that has good bad.

It doesn't have to be logical, credible or anything else.  It's just designed to fire neurons in putty-heads.  Association.  Simple, effective.  The mere "saying" is all that is necessary - valorize something by juxtaposing it with something valorous. Think advertising.

Neoboho

"In a nutshell Snow simply meant that when things appear dark and victory is but a remote ideal, strength and steadfastness can pave the way to realizing that ideal; as was the case in the unexpected Battle of the Bulge."

No, that was NOT the case.

Go see the goddamn movie - Robert Shaw laid it out very nicely - the US BOUGHT THE GODDAMN WAR WITH MORE MONEY AND MANPOWER THAN GERMANY COULD EVER COME UP WITH. THAT is how the US won the war - the average German soldier was at least twenty percent more effective than the average US soldier - proven by the fact that even in retreat, the German battalions held off entire US armies for long periods of time. Go look it up, "historian."

In other words, it had NOTHING to do with the morons we sent over there to fight it - except that they were numerous and expendable.

"The intent, of course, is that while things in Iraq currently appear bleak, hard work and determination on the part of our men and women in uniform can have unexpectedly positive results (with absolutely no help whatsoever coming from the defeatists at home)."

Read my lips - ruminant evacuation.

In Iraq, NOTHING the US military can do will have ANY significant effect on the political or economic outcome of the Iraq nation - except possibly a negative one by delaying any positive outcome - whether it comes via a civil war or not.

The ONLY way Iraq is going to see a positive outcome is to get the US out of there totally and soon.

And the ONLY way the US is going to see a positive outcome is to get the US out of there totally and soon.

J. McCutchen "JmacSF"

San Francisco. CA

drv...things aren't as they usta be

Is the Insurgency on the Rebound?  at TIME Magazine, Jun 20

Why Lindsay Graham, Charm Offensive Chorus castrati soprano, was singing "Stay the Course, We've Had a 'Sea Change', just day before yesterday.

I am so confused.  I thought we'd dealt a mortal blow to the turruhrisses of evil.  You mean all those GOP singers were lying to America?  But they all wear Old Glory and Yellow Ribbons on their lapels!

They should cut the crap and run?

Gettysburg,

After reading the comments by almost everyone on this thread one would come to the conclusion that current U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq are not of the same breed or quality as those who fought in the Second World War.

Not the soldiers.  The leadership....

Russert: If your analysis is not correct, and we’re not treated as liberators, but as conquerors, and the Iraqis begin to resist, particularly in Baghdad, do you think the American people are prepared for a long, costly, and bloody battle with significant American casualties?

Cheney: Well, I don’t think it’s likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators.

After perusing all the posts, I have come to the following conclusion:  If it is the job of the presidential press secretary to create controversy that obscures more important issues, then I'd say give Snow a gold star.

You may well ask if that means continual "confabulation" or does he get to tell straight anytime soon.

In my view, Snow is a better FOXNEWS anchor than he is a press secretary.  He has trouble keeping his mouth shut before he has thought through what it is he really wants to say.  That is acceptable on FOXNEWS (and a few other places as well) but not as presidential press sec.

Gettysburg's -- or the administration's -- insistence that sticking with it will lead to victory does not make it so. It substitutes cheerleading for analysis. It also tries to make those who oppose the war responsible for its outcome, just as the right tried to blame liberals for the outcome of the Vietnam war. But that's dishonest, then and now, and nothing's going wrong in Iraq now other than the war itself. Certainly the left, with no part in the war now, isn't to blame for its sad course, and I see no evidence that it's going to get better if we all keep clicking our heels. Indeed, if it's an occupation, as Hoppy ponts out, how could it get better?

However, I'll caution Hoppy and others that the frame of "war" rather than occupation isn't going to go away. The public may not like the war. They may see it as too costly, too remote from American interests, too badly managed to salvage, or a loser with which they don't wish to be associated. Yet Americans don't like to see the mselves as an occupying power, and it's not going to be easy to avoid political fallout for both parties, even though it's Bush's war, when it ultimately does have to end. It's critical that the Democrats plan politically for that moment.

John

http://www.haberarts.com/

And the evidence that "the American people, when employing hindsight, understand that the odds of success were long at the outset of the [Battle of the Bulge]" is...where, Gettysburg? Do you ever get tired of just making stuff up to support your beloved Republican party?

P.S.: If you want to know "where exactly is [my] question," it's the first sentence above that ends with a question mark--the same as in my previous post. You may answer either question, although I suspect that your response will instead be to ramble and make up yet more stuff.

Check right above your post, and see the kind of rhetoric I was responding to. Sometimes Gettysburgh gets real personal himself, and that is a worthy thing to answer.

Jan Knaus

I have to wonder why Democrats can't make the Iraq vote more personal for the Republicans. Just to give one example - Bill Frist has two college age sons. When he spouts off about Democrats supposed "cowardice" and "surrender", why can't a Democratic Senator very pointedly ask him why, if Frist is so eager to stay the course, haven't his sons enlisted? I'd like to see a list of all Republican members of congress with children or grandchildren who are in their 20s and get each one of them to explain why those kids haven't enlisted. (Maybe a reporter could also ask why the Bush twins haven't enlisted?)

The mere "saying" is all that is necessary - valorize something by juxtaposing it with something valorous. Think advertising.

Not to mention bonus points for subtly insinuating that Saddam=Hitler, insurgents=Nazis.

That is an important point - by 1944, the Red Army was going to take Berlin regardless of what happened or didn't happen on the Western front.

The Cold War prevented a rational assessment of WWII history on both sides. Many Americans are convinced that the US single-handedly won the war. Many Russians are convinced that the USSR single-handedly won the war. Both are of course wrong, but one can make some inferences from looking eg. at how many German divisions fought on the Eastern vs. Western front and how many casualties there were (talking only about WWII in Europe of course!).

To get some things in perspective though, this article may help:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

The WWII Allied military deaths pie chart is very interesting - 64% Soviets, 2% Americans. Wikipedia also shows that out of 5.5 million German military casualties, 4.3 million were on the Eastern front. That should be a good illustration of where Germany lost the war.

I don't know how balanced (probably not very) the presentation of WWII history was in the West, but in the Soviet bloc the Western front and American material contributions to the Soviet war effort pretty much did not exist. All talk was about the "Great Patriotic War" and how brave communists defeated the evil fascists.

(it is interesting that although Fascists were technically in Italy, not Germany, Russians called Germans 'fascists' because Nazism means National Socialism and socialism was supposed to be good)

Transhuman

For once I mostly agree with you. The U.S. DID "buy" the war by bringing more firepower to the table than Germany could ever hope to counter. I was not implying that the Battle of the Bulge was the tipping point for the Allied Forces. Indeed, we all know it was the last ditch effort by the Germans to prolong the war. The point is that the Allies WERE caught by surprise by the German decision to go for broke with that battle. When it began the odds were clearly in favor of the Axis powers. The outcome of the war would not have changed at all had Germany prevailed in that battle; but thanfully it never came to that because of the hard fought victory by the good guys.

WHEN have I EVER whined about a rating? I have noticed quite a few of my posts getting 4 from multiple users lately, though.

Do watch your ratings fall through the floor from here on out...

Nancy Irving

I wonder whether Bush's strategy of not asking for any sacrifice from the American people at large has backfired on him. That the average American without family in the military must regard the Iraq war in abstract terms means that the average American really has no stake in the conflict. If we all had been asked to sacrifice for the good of the war effort, we might be more willing to see it out.

Maybe.

Meme van Doren?  Does that jog the old memory?  (but yeah, meme is pretty clunky.  I put in the same drawer with factoid.)

Neoboho

J. McCutchen "JmacSF"

San Francisco. CA

If you saw Shieffer's fawning interview of Tony Snow Sunday, you'll know why he thinks he can get away with his bullsh*t

If we all had been asked to sacrifice for the good of the war effort, we might be more willing to see it out.

Give me a break! If we had 'all' (excluding millionaires, living or recently dead and rich enough for the estate tax) been asked to sacrifice there never would have been a war.

Why would anyone think the Bush base would want to sacrifice to 'free people', especially brown people? Of course the war was sold to racist Americans as a pure payback for 9/11. The Bush base does support killing and bombing people who pose no threat to the US and have not attacked us.

As to sacrifice, there will be sacrifice aplenty in America when the reckoning arrives for the astoundingly poor decisions, the incompetent leadership of this administration, and the trillions more in debt Bush has run up on the nation's credit card.