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Prismattic comments on 9/11 as mindkiller - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (111)
I realize that this isn't exactly what you asked, but I would say that reasoning by historical analogy is setting yourself up for failure in general. You are almost always going to elide some important contemporary details. There is usually plenty of other evidence to weigh without adding in history, so why do so?
On a separate note, it's pretty clear that Americans' relatively favorable view of the use of force is related to the fact that the only two wars that loom large in the national consciousness are World War II, which almost everyone in the US views as a just war, and the Civil War, which almost everyone in the US agrees was a just war (though opinions differ on which side was fighting the just fight). World War I, which had a major impact on European consciousness as an extremely bloody and completely pointless war, isn't really remembered in the US, and Viet Nam is a tribal mindkiller to this day.
I disagree. I think the Vietnam war does loom very large in American's consciousness. It is the counterpoint to WW II. I remember Cheney complaining in an interview that no one could even wait for the Iraq war to be underway before asking "is it Vietnam yet?". In fact there was a LOT of vocal skepticism about the war in Iraq before it started and as it unfolded.
Do people think of that war as anti-just, non-just, not-just-enough, or just but lost? I think many see it as each of those four.
Yes I think all of those are pretty common views, although the question of justness itself maybe isn't so important in terms of an enduring reaction to that war. To the extent Vietnam was still on people's minds at the beginning of this century perhaps it was as a more generalized example of many ways in which a war can become confounded and much more costly than we would like to think possible. Before Vietnam who could have thought a small country of such limited resources could successfully defy the greatest superpower ever known to the world?
In contrast at the start of the Iraq war most people knew it was at least possible, and it seems more than one apologist for the war had to answer the question of "how Iraq isn't Vietnam". By this time we knew that simply calculating the strategic simplicity with which we would dominate the seas, skies and (broadly) land was insufficient.
To be fair, said country was being backed by the second greatest superpower in the world.
I agree that you can't reason by historical analogy alone, but do you think historical analogies should be left out entirely?
I strongly agree that American character has been shaped by the feeling of just war, and if one identifies with the north, then with victory in just wars.