The Backbone of the West...

Do you think the Western peoples have a backbone anymore? Look at the war in Iraq: It's not even two weeks old and people are comparing it to Vietnam and saying the war has failed. I'm just thinking back to WWII and what it would have been like to fight that war with todays media. I all most thinking having the 24/7 coverage is bad thing from the eyes of "getting the truth."

I think we would get more "truth" if we had to wait longer for our news. We would have more time to put things in context. The 24hr channels are all trying to be first and haven't done the best job putting things in context for the average viewer.

I don''t think that Western people don''t have a backbone, I just think that they are way too quick to jump to conclusions. In the world we live in now, everything is instant; everything can be bought off of the internet instantly, people travel over the ocean in less than 5 hours, etc... The people today are much less patient than the people of the late 60''s, when you actually had to get up and drive yourself to the music store to get music instead of downloading it off your broadband. We need results in today''s world, and we need them quickly.

It is not a matter of having a backbone, but a matter of patience. People don''t realize that the war has been going on for less than two weeks and we have already made amazing progress, they just realize that they have watched at least 15 hours of CNN war reports and they are already tired of it.

The people today are much less patient than the people of the late 60''s

Yeah, well, in the current case you can also blame the administration. ""Shock & Awe"" were promised and warfare on a scale ""never seen before"". Add some ""will be near Baghdad within 3-4 days"" some military spokesman (who might or might not have his job position anymore) and descriptions about how fast the regular Iraqi army would surrender and how Basra would be a cake-walk and whatnot and you see how a certain level of expectation was established.

Keep in mind, Ulairi, the people reporting this squeamishness and discontent will turn right around and go on about how the latest Gallup Poll indicates 70% of American citizens still support the war. I believe that the media is far out of touch with the average citizen and that the media''s only concern really is getting out the latest scrap of news first. I mean, let''s look at the last week. We''ve had reports of a possible chemical weapons plant, the capture of an Iraqi general, and the horribly conflicting reports about MIA''s. All of these have been instances where the on-air reporter will stop mid-sentence, and begin blathering on about how there might possibly be a soldier missing from a Marine unit. They are unable to get even the distinction between a soldier and a marine correct, and that''s a pretty big mistake, IMO. One is a regular serviceman in the ARMY and the other is a MARINE in the MARINE CORPS. Who''s to say they aren''t screwing up other things or making sh*t up just to get the scoop? I''ve been vainly trying to find other TV to watch but there isn''t a damn thing on.

I would tend to agree with asands, that we live in a culture that promotes instant gratification. If we don''t get it yesterday, something must be wrong. Our decadence and arrogance makes us a target, mostly because we don''t show any responsibility in how we handle our affairs.

I''m pretty discontend with this whole affair and I also believe that it''s been taking to long but that''s because I maintain we should have waited until we had enough ground personal to do the job right the first time.

Yeah, well, in the current case you can also blame the administration. ""Shock & Awe"" were promised and warfare on a scale ""never seen before"". Add some ""will be near Baghdad within 3-4 days"" some military spokesman (who might or might not have his job position anymore) and descriptions about how fast the regular Iraqi army would surrender and how Basra would be a cake-walk and whatnot and you see how a certain level of expectation was established.

Precisely! The problem is not with the ''Western People'' here, but several administrations (not just the U.S.) who, in an effort to generate support for the war, dismissed the regime, the Iraqi resistance, and the difficulty of the war. We were fed a strategy that basically said ""we''re going to walk through the front door, and they''ll be waving the US flag in the streets of Baghdad waiting for us."" I remember at least one person in this forum who told me I''d be eating my words when we got to Iraq''s major cities and the streets were teeming with uprisings and citizens cheering our troop. I wish I''d had to eat those words. I really do.

Yes, perhaps there is a level of instant gratification here, but it''s exactly the line of BS we were fed in the first place. I think if you see support for the war degrade a lot of people are going to assume it''s because of a lack of backbone, but I think that would be misguided. I think people support this war under the promised notion that it would be an easy and quick war, and I don''t think people - who were pretty ambivilent about the war''s legitimacy in the first place - are going to put up with a long term conflict. What will make it worse is that, already, we have officials squabbling and the official propaganda machine hitting bumps (see Peter Arnett). When it comes right down to it, a lot of people believe what TV tells them to believe, and if TV can''t keep its act together then things are only going to get more ugly.

Do you think the Western peoples have a backbone anymore? Look at the war in Iraq: It''s not even two weeks old and people are comparing it to Vietnam and saying the war has failed. I''m just thinking back to WWII and what it would have been like to fight that war with todays media. I all most thinking having the 24/7 coverage is bad thing from the eyes of ""getting the truth.""

I think it''s a case that we''re divided in our belief about this war. In WW2 almost everyone believed that the war was justified and necessary, compare that to today. Also in WW2 the media were very heavily censored and I would say most media correspondents of the day also believed in the war, today the military find it hard to censor the footage that is shown on TV. I think that a lot of people find it hard to believe in this hi-tech age that our military personnel and civilians can be killed.

today the military find it hard to censor the footage that is shown on TV.

Well, to their defense, I think they put in the embedded journalist program because they genuinely believed this would be a relatively easy conflict with lots of great shots of Iraqi civilians being liberated.

On the other hand, don''t kid yourself about the level of censorship. One of our local papers - The St. Paul Pioneer Press - in a recent editorial discussed and praised a site called The Memory Hole - a site that is not precisely political, but is trying to present an uncensored version reality - which is posting pictures from Iraq that you won''t see on CNN, MSNBC, or television. I suppose some could argue that this site is merely trying to be macabre, or capitalize off some thirst for blood, but I don''t have the impression that the content is being presented in that vein. War is, by its nature, a terrible and offensive thing, but this ''bravery of being out of range'' crap we''re seeing on television (vague explosions in green nightvision) has little to do with war.

I am posting a link to some of The Memory Hole images. Honestly, I recommed that you think seriously about what you want to see before clicking the link, because the images are ghastly, bloody, depressing, and frankly offensive. The argument being that war is all those things and more, and that to just watch what you see on US television is to stick your head in the sand.

Think hard before you click this link.

Think hard before you click this link.

Working for a big national paper we get just about every channel, recently we''ve been watching ABu Dhabi TV and Al Jazeera and they certainly don''t stint on the gorey images and footage that few other channels would be willing or allowed to show, that''s not to say however that they present it in the proper light either, Al Jazeera especially is guilty of using their postion for propaganda purposes.

I don''t think that it is fair to place the blame on the officials that reported that this would be a quick and easy war. These officials only really convinced the ignorant. Any Americans that really thought about what was going to have to take place could see that this would take time, effort and money. Take the First Gulf War for example. We had three times as many ground troops trying to push the Iraqi''s out of Kuwait, a country roughly the size of Colorado. That war took months. Now we are trying to take over a country the size of California with a third as many troops on their home turf. It is just like the American Revolutionary War, we didn''t have to fight to win, we just had to not lose.
This war is going to take a lot of time, my guess is at least another two months to wipe out the regime; and anyone that put any real thought into the duration of the war should have known it would take a while. As I said before, only the ignorant or patriotically fanatic people really believed that this would be a knockout punch and it''s over kind of operation.

So if you define ""Western Civilization"" as the ignorant, then it is the stupid promises of the American media that is at fault for our impatience. Otherwise, I don''t think there is any impatience.

These officials only really convinced the ignorant

Irrelevant. Theyre our officials, we rely on them for information, and they lied to us to get the ignorant to support the war. Doesn''t change the fact that they share the blame in supporting this ""quick war"" scenario.

I agree that it is the administration''s fault that the masses got pulled into this whole blitzkrieg idea, I am just saying that anyone that really looked into the war beforehand knew that this wasn''t going to be quick; and I consider the people that put independent thought into their actions to be the real Western Civilization.

I''m sorry if I offend anyone with this, or if any of you feel that this is off-topic, but I just get so tired with people blindly following what the media and administration says. If you aren''t going to think for yourself then you have no right to complain when what other people say doesn''t come true.

Do any of us know anyone who thought this would be a quick war?

When I talk quick war that would be less than 3 months. I thinks its safe to say that we are still on that time table.

You cant tell me that someone actually thought a quick war meant days. Think of the idiocy of that belief. The only war that I cant think of that lasted days was the ""6 day"" war between Israel and Syria, Egypt, Jordan.

I know quite a few people that thought that this war would be a matter of weeks. Barely anyone that I know thought the war would take longer than 3 months.

You cant tell me that someone actually thought a quick war meant days.

I think that a lot of people thought the war would be virtually won in a few days. That is, the situation would be so obviously lopsided - shock and awe - so as the war itself was only a formality. I know many people who took this perspective, and heard even more on the radio.

I''m sorry if I offend anyone with this, or if any of you feel that this is off-topic, but I just get so tired with people blindly following what the media and administration says.

I don''t think you offended anyone with your comments. They were spot on topic. I think most of us - since we''ve obviously all taken some time to think about what''s going on, despite coming to sometimes different conclusions - all feel this frustration with the mindless automaton nature some folks exhibit.