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Much of the world has the impression that the American public has a short attention span and little stomach for taking casualties - and in many ways they are right. In WWII and Korea we didn't have embedded reporters and live on-the-scene coverage of every battle. Today's CNN and Nintendo generation wants instant gratification with conflicts resolved quickly with a happy ending before the next commercial break. After a few weeks, wars get boring and the headlines shift focus to more important things like Paris Hilton's latest boyfriend.
To most Americans the threat of terrorism isn't real and messy things like war just drive up the cost of gasoline. There is not much long-term thinking going on here and the rest of the world knows it. That is why the bad guys think they can win by being patient and by inflicting more casualties - sooner or later the Americans will pull out when the war is no longer entertaining to the American public.
That's when the folks with the "Impeach Bush NOW - 2000 dead in Bush's war!" stickers on their cars will get what they want. I wonder if these people ever considered the number of casualties taken in WWII and what the world would be like today if we had not finished that job?
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"Excretion is the bitter part of valor."
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