People expect a mistake free war?

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War is a lot more than just overrunning a weak military, so, I respectfully disagree with you that I "totally missed the point."

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My point was entirely comparative, and your response didn't seem to address my point; all you did was cite examples of atrocity. Atrocities occur in every war. So citing atrocity does not in any way rebut the point that most wars are more difficult than this war.

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Your contention may well be correct. If it is correct then that is a good thing for us and the world and we should stand up and applaud their efforts. It should give pause to the next nutcase who wants to start a war on thin pretext .

But the atrocities are important as they are a part of war. War changed forever with Vietnam because now the people back home were able to see with their own eyes what was going on. Americans watched in horror as the embassy in Saigon was nearly overrun and they cried with the victims of the My Lai massacre. Television has brought the war into America where it never was before. We sent our boys overseas and assumed everything was okay. There were parades when they came home and the only taste of the war abroad were pictures of the pretty French girls giving flowers to their heroic liberators. Now they see everything and that is war too. Add to that the fact that nobody can adequately explain that the cause is just, makes it that much more difficult to say "war is easy." War is never easy, it's not easy for the innocent victims, it's not easy for the mothers and fathers and it certainly isn't easy for those on the battlefields.

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But the atrocities are important as they are a part of war. War changed forever with Vietnam because now the people back home were able to see with their own eyes what was going on. Americans watched in horror as the embassy in Saigon was nearly overrun and they cried with the victims of the My Lai massacre. Television has brought the war into America where it never was before. We sent our boys overseas and assumed everything was okay. There were parades when they came home and the only taste of the war abroad were pictures of the pretty French girls giving flowers to their heroic liberators. Now they see everything and that is war too. Add to that the fact that nobody can adequately explain that the cause is just, makes it that much more difficult to say "war is easy." War is never easy, it's not easy for the innocent victims, it's not easy for the mothers and fathers and it certainly isn't easy for those on the battlefields.

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Yeah, but I didn't say, "The Iraq war is easy." I said that COMPARED TO MOST OTHER WARS it's easy.

Let's say you have to run 7 miles in the hot sun, or freezing rain. Well, it won't be easy. But COMPARED TO RUNNING A MARATHON IN A BLIZZARD, it's easy.

The words "war" and "easy" should never be in the same sentence.

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The words "war" and "easy" should never be in the same sentence.

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Come on now.

You're right, I'm wrong. I was asking some Vietnam vets, you know, the ones with nightmares and sever drinking, drug, and mental problems. They agree, it's very easy for an 18 year old to be far from home in an environment where it seems that everyone is trying to kill him. My bad. It's also a cakewalk to come home, watch friends die painful deaths from exposure to unknow chemicals that their own government dropped on them and wonder if that's going to happen to them as well. And, without a doubt, it's next to nothing to have the knowledge that your f-upped sperm as a result of said exposure is causing serious problems in your offspring, beyond the ones that your habitual drunkeness and violent behavior towards them have caused.
What is easy is for one who hasn't been exposed to combat, especially if your father's influences helped that cause, to arbitrarily commit troops without just cause.

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Russian Bear, do you understand the difference between "easy" and "comparatively easy"?

Saying "the Iraq war is easy compared to most wars", is approximately the same as saying "most wars are difficult compared to the Iraq war." Both are comparative

Somehow, I don't think you would have a problem with the second sentence, but both sentences mean essentially the same thing.

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Using the word "easy" in the same sentence as the word "war" even in the comparative sense appears to a demonstrate a lack of understanding of war -- other than from an armchair.

In any event, if this is an "easy(ier)" war then it should behoove the next nut who wants to invade a country to look at the results of this war prior to the invasion and perhaps only invade when there is a real imminent and gather threat - rather than an imagined and fabricated threat. But most war advocates of the Iraq war have shown a lack of understanding of the history of conflicts and invasion.

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Using the word "easy" in the same sentence as the word "war" even in the comparative sense appears to a demonstrate a lack of understanding of war -- other than from an armchair.

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Anyone with a logical mind should understand that the comparative sense, when clearly applied, trumps any contradictory connotations of the word.