Interesting historical factoid of the day

August 18, 2006

Reader R.G. emails an interesting tidbit about the length of the war in Iraq.

December 7, 1941 (attack on Peal Harbor) to May 8, 1945 (VE-Day) was 1,248 days.

March 19, 2003 (U.S. launches invasion of Iraq) to today is also 1,248 days.

Now, one could quibble a bit about the length of World War II, which was underway before December 1941, and didn’t really end until Japan surrendered a few months after VE-Day.

But that’s not really the point. Think about when Donald Rumsfeld said, in February 2003, “It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.” If someone had said then that the war would still be ongoing, with no end in sight, for a duration longer than World War II, the Bush gang would have laughed out loud (or, if the person worked for the administration, fired).

The same goes for Dick Cheney, who said in March 2003, “We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators…. I think it will go relatively quickly… (in) weeks rather than months.”

To be fair, Rumsfeld and Cheney would probably respond that they were only referring to “major combat operations,” which ended when “Mission Accomplished” was declared in 2003.

Given what we’ve seen since then, it’s not a wholly satisfying answer, is it?

I’ll give you a much better comparison

Pearl Harbor attacked December 7, 1941 to Admiral Yamamoto killed by the Army Air Corps 18 April 1943 was 493 days.

The World Trade Center destroyed 11 September 2001 to Osama bin Laden still alive today is 1802 days (and counting).

Yamamot Isoroku was the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack. It took less than 500 days for America to punish him for that and he stood behind the might of Imperial Japan.

Osama bin Laden was the architect of the 9/11 attacks and it’s taken the Bushites more than three times as long, they still haven’t found and killed him, and he was protected by nothing but the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and now is hiding out in the tribal regions of Pakistan.

Worst – President – Ever!

  • Quibble about what? The US participation in WWII is basically the same length of time as the US participation in the Iraq war. Our “leaders” claim that Iraq is part of the “war on terror.” The “war on terror” according to many, actually began well before March 19, 2003.

  • NSA opened its doors in November 1952-building on the legacy of its predecessor-the Armed Forces Security Agency.

    Maybe the judge should interview all the members of the Intelligence Committe. NSA has always done this.

  • This strikes me as a great point to put in front of the public over and over in terms of the sheer incompetence of the present administration.

    In World War II, we faced multiple enemies on multiple theaters. By any account, the scale was immense compared to the very contained operation in Iraq. Japan and Germany had very potent armed forces (relative to the comparable forces of their day) something that is certainly not true of the various Iraq militias — or even their sponsor states.

    And yet, by working with other allies, by making better decisions about how, where, and to what degree to apply force, by asking for (and receiving) sacrifices at home we were able to not just end, but clearly win, a World War in less time than this administration could subdue Hussein’s Iraq. Pathetic.

    The next big timeline comparison will likely be that we were able to completely rebuild Germany and its economy into a valuable contributor to the world economy and a friend of the US via the Marshall Plan in much shorter time than it will take us to restore Iraq — assuming we ever even try to complete that task.

  • Hey, FDR had America do more than go shopping, right?
    And I believe that he had a thing against war profiteering, too.
    No wonder the Republican’ts hate him.

  • Since when is an occupation and a police effort a war? Why dont we stop calling it that for starters. This is not how wars are prosecuted, unless of course you are absolutely incompetent and/or dont know who your enemy is. And it is certainly not a part of the war on terror, only something that has turned that so called war into a debacle. Man, Im so tired of this…

  • Is it a “war” in Iraq that’s gone on for 1,200+ days?

    This whole Iraq adventure has been misnamed from the start – war is inaccurate, invasion & occupation accurate.

    You cannot compare America’s involvement in WWII to the Iraq mess.
    They are not the same thing.

  • Imagine the mood in this country if by 1945 the farthest the US had advanced was Guadacanal and North Africa.

    That’s why I don’t buy the whole “liberal media losing the war” bit. If there was tangible evidence that Iraq was improving (i.e., less, not more, bombings and killings, and electricity and jobs), the press stories would be more positive, like at the beginning of the Iraq invasion.

  • We all know the war on terror is simply a way for the neocons and their GOP lackeys to maintain indefinate power. The republicans are simply fascist; there is no other way to put it. They would have no problem whatsoever revoking the constitution and representative democray in favor of one party rule. Hell, they admitted it. Americans need to decide whether they want to live in a democracy with equal representation, or in a one party system. Choose either a democrat this November, or a Republican. A vote for a Democrat is a vote for democracy, a Republican vote is for corporate fascism, it’s that simple.

  • Applying the term “war” to both terrorism and Iraq irritate the hell out of me and remind me of the “knife” scene from “Crocodile Dundee.” That doesn’t mean our troops are on a dry fire drill in Iraq, but the constant references to “war,” and comparing it to world wars is ludicrous. By repeating and repeating “war,” the Bushies have been getting everything they want. Same for the “Everything changed after 9/11.” Sure it did. In a time of crisis and national tragedy, George Bush was still president next morning.

    The idiot gives new meaning to “a sitting president.” Add an “h” if you want.

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