Elite Iraqi Guard Heads Toward Marines

[Bradford DeLong]

>Actually, Kelley's analysis is not cynical.  I noticed before the war
>started that the American people were more opposed to war when it was
>associated with Iraqi civilian casualties than when it was associated with
>American military casualties.  I think there is a strong discomfort by
>Americans with a "video game" war where we essentially shoot Iraqi fish in a
>barrel.  But US soldiers dying shows that Americans are willing to sacrific
>for their ideals (in the minds of war supporters), so those deaths actually
>make the war more justified for many people I suspect.  It also justifies
>the war to avenge their deaths, that every pleasant cycle of violence that
>drives most conflicts.
>
>What is most likely to dim American support is if the Iraqi internal
>opposition continues and it becomes clear that most of the population
>rejects our presence.  This war was sold as a war of liberation and while
>the rightwing is comfortable with a war of conquest, the vast middle is
>not-- that is what will turn people most against the war, not American
>casualties.
>
>-- Nathan

Nathan is smart...

Brad DeLong