Monday, May 14, 2007

Vietnam vs. Iraq

Study the graph at right for a few minutes (click on it to get a larger version).

What’s your reaction?

If (like me) you’re old enough to remember the news reports during the Vietnam war, you might have the same reaction I did: the anti-war agitation in the media now is at least roughly similar to what we saw in the late 1960s and (especially) the early 1970s — but the casualties we suffered in Vietnam dwarfed the casualties we’re suffering in Iraq, and clearly the level of anti-war emotion in today’s American public doesn’t even come close to the anti-war emotion in the public toward the end of Vietnam, when we had many anti-war riots and (as I can personally attest) soldiers and sailors were routinely disrespected and reviled.

What do you think is going on here?