US military held number one in hearts and minds
Okinawa was the bloodiest battle of the Pacific war. More than 12,000 Americans were killed (along with 101,000 Japanese soldiers and about 100,000 Okinawan civilians), and 38,000 wounded in two and a half months of fighting. The first parallel between Okinawa then and Iraq today is that it was clear when the battle of Okinawa began on April 1st, 1945, that the U.S. would win World War II. It has been clear since the elections in January that the insurgents would lose in Iraq.
The second parallel, the emergence of the suicide bomber, is a proof of the first. Okinawa was as bloody as it was chiefly because of the kamikaze pilots. Nearly 5,000 of the 12,000 American dead were sailors killed in kamikaze attacks. The kamikaze behind the wheel of a car or truck has become the weapon of choice in Iraq, and — as our media constantly remind us — has created much carnage in the last two months.
The suicide bomber is a weapon of fanatics. But it is also a weapon of desperation. The Japanese were fanatical from Pearl Harbor on. But the kamikaze didn’t make an appearance until Oct. 19, 1944, near the end of the battle of Leyte Gulf, which marked the effective destruction of the Japanese navy. The Japanese didn’t turn to suicide bombers until defeat was staring them in the face.
Two wars are going on today. The first, in Iraq, is being won despite the best efforts of the MSM to demoralize the home front and paint victory as defeat.
The second war is against the demoralizing MSM itself (classic example via Powerline). It is a war of attrition, and the attrition is measured in the declining circulations of network news and elite broadsheets, and mirrored in the rock-bottom confidence that Americans have in the media, particularly versus the military. So many ways to say it, the military besting the MSM in confidence 74% to 28%: a vast majority of Americans have confidence in the military, while a vast majority of Americans do not have confidence in the MSM; or, 3x as many Americans have confidence in the military as do in the media — you’d think the MSM would stop digging their own grave at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib — yeah, a rational person would think that (chart via Gallup):
74% for the military, 26-28% for the media, 22% for Congress. Quite a story.