That strange little man Glenn Reynolds with his strangely popular blog Instapundit writes a characteristically inane post which seemingly doesn't make any point at all. As is expected, every right wing-blogger and his uncle have linked to this post 'cause there's a general consensus among the rubes that if Reynolds writes a post, even if it's just a list of winning numbers for the Oklahoma State lottery, it is worthy enough to be linked. So anyways, Reynolds points to this post by someone calling himself Proud Kaffir at RedState.org who says that the media shouldn't compare the Iraq war to Vietnam because not enough soldiers are dying in Iraq to merit the comparison.
You know how you sometimes go to a theater to watch a movie with your buddies and when its done and finished and you leave the movie theater saying, fuck what an amazing movie, the plot was superb and all, but I just can't figure out why the hero killed his partner towards the end. And then your buddies look at you like you're retarded and gently, in a manner befitting the occasion, ask you if you understood the plot at all?
Someday hopefully soon, there will be a day in the life of Proud Kaffir when he will understand the plot. Till then, I will take up the onerous task of explaining it to him. See, Proud Kaffir, whenever we, the anti-war brigade, speak of Iraq being a quagmire like Vietnam, we say it strictly in terms of the literal meaning of the word quagmire, which is a word used metaphorically to describe military campaigns characterized by small hope of victory, poorly-defined objectives and/or no clear exit strategy. I lifted it right from Wikipedia. You may look it up at your own leisure. So you see, Mr Proud Kaffir, the Iraq-Vietnam comparison has nothing to do with the number of lives lost in those wars. It is a matter of both wars being prolonged conflicts, both having being waged unnecessarily with little or no planning having gone into their culmination. Please let me know when this nugget of logic permeates to your brain. That way, through some quick mathematical calculation, I will be able to estimate the thickness of your skull.
Then, Glenn Reynolds, being smarter (one would assume) than the Proud Kaffir, omits any mention of the Vietnam comparison in his link to the post, instead, making another, even more irrelevant point. He provides us with some figures of the number of casualties during the reigns of the past 4 presidents of the United States and shows us that George W Bush didn't kill as many American soldiers during his presidency as the media believes. And he ends his post with the statement
"You'd think this would get more attention."
Why should this get more attention? What point is he making exactly? That since a lesser number of soldiers died during Bush's regime, that makes the Iraq war okay? Again, let me explain the point to Glenn. We, the anti-war brigade, are not opposing this war merely because it is killing American soldiers. We are opposing it because we feel that this war has been waged on fundamentally flawed grounds and false pretenses. So, Mr Reynolds, please, please, I beg of you, the next time you link to someone, at least have a coherent reason for doing so. And a point would also be a nice thing to have.
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