Mr. Sharkey sent this in...

ROSS IN RANGE
A Guest Column from Bill Whittle, or
I'm Not the Only One Thinking About What the Iraq War Means
By John Ross (Yes, that John Ross)

Copyright 2003 by Bill Whittle. Electronic reproduction of this article freely permitted provided it is reproduced in its entirety with attribution given.

The following piece was emailed to me by my good friend Chuck Kaiser. Chuck is also in the investment business, working at St. Louis-based A.G. Edwards. Our children are in the same grade in elementary school. Chuck read and liked my book, enough to pay the tab on a mint first edition when it became available. He emailed me the following piece on the Iraqi war. It was written, I believe, by Bill Whittle, whose excellent website can be found at http://www.ejectejecteject.com. Be aware that this piece does not exactly mirror my own feelings in every instance. But I like the larger message, and I especially like Bill's "alternate history" scenarios. They are a reminder that many big things in life are determined by comparatively small events.
--John Ross

Life during wartime.

There's nothing I can say about the parade of pictures, the endless faces - except, perhaps, that they all seemed to share a fierce pride in their eyes, photographed for the first time in their Dress Blues. Surely their families are proud of them. I certainly am, and I never got to know any of them. And now, I never will.

Names and ranks go on and on: Sergeants, and Captains, and Privates. These men have died for us. More will follow. You may be against this war, but even if you are, the fact remains: these kids died for all of us. We asked them to go, and they went.

All across this nation -- here and there, sparkling across the map like fireflies on a summer night - sedans are slowly rolling to a stop outside of small, modest homes. Men in uniform emerge, straighten their tunics, and walk slowly up driveways. Door knockers rap. Maybe here and there smiles will evaporate in shock and surprise as doors are opened, but more likely the face will be one full of stunned realization that the very worst thing in the whole world has happened. And children will be sent to their rooms. And the men will speak in somber, respectful tones. And sons and mothers and fathers and wives will be told that the one thing they love more than anything in this world has been taken away from them, that their children will not be
coming home, that their fathers have gone away and will never come back, not ever.

Why do we do this? What could possibly be worth this?

This war is an abject and utter failure. What everyone thought would be a quick, decisive victory has turned into an embarrassing series of reversals. The enemy, -- a ragtag, badly-fed collection of hotheads and fanatics - has failed to be shocked and awed by the most magnificent military machine ever fielded. Their dogged resistance has shown us the futility of the idea that a nation of millions could ever be subjugated and administered, no matter what obscene price we are willing to pay in blood and money.

The President of the United States is a buffoon, an idiot, a man barely able to speak the English language. His vice president is a little-seen, widely despised enigma and his chief military advisor a wild-eyed warmonger. Only his Secretary of State offers any hope of redemption, for he at least is a reasonable, well-educated man, a man most thought would have made a far, far better choice for Chief Executive.

We must face the fact that we had no business forcing this unjust war on a people who simply want to be left alone. It has damaged our international relationships beyond any measure, and has proven to be illegal, immoral and nothing less than a monumental mistake that will take generations to rectify. We can never hope to subdue and remake an entire nation of millions. All we will do is alienate them further. So we must bring this war to an immediate end, and make a solemn promise to history that we will never launch another war of aggression and preemption again, so help us God.

So spoke the American press. The time was the summer of 1864. Everyone thought the Rebels would be whipped at Bull Run, and that the Confederacy would collapse within a few days or hours of such a defeat. No one expected the common Southern man to fight so tenaciously, a man who owned no slaves and who in fact despised the rich fire-eaters who had taken them to war.

Lincoln was widely considered a bumpkin, a gorilla, an uncouth backwoods hick who by some miracle of political compromise had made it to the White House. Secretary of War Stanton had assumed near-dictatorial powers and was also roundly despised. Only Secretary of State William Seward, a well-spoken, intelligent easterner and a former Presidential candidate, seemed fit to hold office.

After three interminable and unbelievably bloody years of conflict, many in the Northern press had long ago become convinced that there was no hope of winning the far, and far less of winning the peace that followed. After nearly forty months of battle and maneuver, after seeing endless hopes dashed in spectacular failure, after watching the magnificent Army of the Potomac again and again whipped and humiliated
by a far smaller, under-fed, under-equipped force, the New York newspapers and many, many others were calling for an immediate end to this parade of failures.

It took them forty months and hundreds of thousands killed to reach that point. Today, many news outlets have reached a similar conclusion about Iraq after ten days and less than fifty combat fatalities.

Ahhh. Progress.
MORE: http://john-ross.net/war.htm