Going By the Numbers
Orin Kerr at the Volokh Conspiracy thinks that
the casualty numbers in Iraq are comparable to those in Vietnam.
While the casualty rate in Vietnam is considerably higher than the rate in Iraq, Jim's comparison led me to realize that the differences are smaller than I would have thought.
Jim Lindgren's original post (also at the Volokh Conspiracy)
is here.
I disagree with both posts, but let's tackle Jim's first. Jim says:
Any substantial number of US lives lost in Vietnam was (I believe) unwarranted because the war was a failure and its goals questionable.
Now the interesting thing here is to note the objection that the war was a failure. This is reasonably true, but why? Because it ended with the North Vietnamese conquering the South, and therefore nothing was really accomplished other than delaying the (supposedly) inevitable.
But then who made the war a failure? Isn't the answer obvious? Anti-war activists and Watergate-era Democrats who succeeded in getting the US to cut off support for the South Vietnamese government were responsible. Shortly after this happened, South Vietnam and Cambodia fell, and Southeast Asia descended into nightmare.
Now, let's come around to Orin's post. He is surprised by the comparability of the US casualties today in Iraq and those in South Vietnam 35 years ago. But this war has yet to become a failure. As I commented on his post, the
Normandy invasion cost between 2500 and 6000 American lives.
Was that too many? We don't judge it as a failure because we succeeded in the overall war effort and succeeded in the invasion. Will Iraq be a failure? Well, one thing's for certain. If those who have opposed it get their way, it will be, and then they can say they were right all along, just as those who opposed the US involvement in Vietnam do.
