Ugly

There is no question the war is starting to get ugly. What is open to some debate is how the public will react.

We have certianlly been promised a quick and easy war by many in the administration. Many hawks have reasonably said that they didn’t expect this war to be easy or simple, but that was certainly not how it was presented to the public.

Of course all wars get ugly at some point. And all governments trying to go to war project risks and underplay the risks and deliver optimistic projections to the public. A lot of the impressions we have had about how this war will go come from the first gulf war, which was comparatively easy and yielded few American casualties. From the times article liked to above:

As this form of warfare[guerrilla war and similar tactics] has unfolded, the real surprise is why anyone should have been surprised at all. But people have been, among them many who planned the war, many who are fighting it and a large percentage of the general population.

Why? Partly because of Iraq’s poor performance in the 1991 gulf war, which caused many to underestimate Iraqi willingness to fight, while overlooking the distinction between retreating from conquered territory and defending one’s native soil. And partly because protection of civilians has become such an important part of military training. But mostly, because the notion of fierce resistance cut against the grain of how this war was justified to the American people.

There were doubts even in the first gulf war. From Colin Powell’s book, My American Journey, via the New York Times:

In this age of instant information, people tended to expect instant results. Over the next few days, the mood shifted quickly from euphoria to a funk. Why hadn’t we won yet? Was something wrong?

However, the first gulf war was relatively easy and had a narrower scope. We were only trying to get Iraq out of Kuwait, not take over an entire country.

Kos points out a something we have already lost in this ugliness: The impression that the US military is an “invincible juggernaut.” This is something the Bush administration clearly wanted the world to believe.

The troops clearly encountered more resistance then they expected. Whether this is the beginning of a quagmire or just a bump in the road remains to be seen.