1351

[womzilla]

If I'm counting correctly, it has been 1351 days since September 11th, 2001.

The number of days between Pearl Harbor and the surrender of the last Axis power was 1348 (counting both ends).

So Osama has now outlasted Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito in remaining free after openly declaring war on the United States. I guess that's progress of some sort.

(Date counts computed via timeanddate.com.)

Comments

Just an Old War, Not Even a Cold War

[(Anonymous)]

Before there was General Westmoreland, there was General Harkins, who was relieved of command in South Vietnam in 1964. When he left, Harkins made a speech in which he invoked the Indian Wars, which essentially ended in 1892. Unknowingly, he gave an idea of the "wanton and bloody stalemate" still to come. (See David Halberstam's *Best and the Brightest.*)

In 1968, *Time* noted that Vietnam had become America's longest-lasting war. (It marked the start of our involvement from the first casualty of the Kennedy Days.) What had it surpassed? Why, the War for Independence!

My theory these days is while the Administration would like to fight World War II again (we knew we were good, we knew they were bad and most people agreed with us), if we can't, we'll settle for fighting the war in Grenada instead -- quick, tidy, little conflict whose reasons were muddled (we had to save U.S. personnel! No, the Commies were going to take over! We got there just in time!), but which apparently ended on a rousingly successful note (oh, did Marines die in Beirut a while ago?) and which we haven't had to think too much about since 1983.

Most likely, despite the high-sounding World War II parallels for Iraq, what we wanted was another Grenada.

We didn't get it.

We may call it madness, but I'm sure Commander Cuckoo Bananas calls it hidey-ho!

Salaam from the Sparrow, who passes along the fact that more medals were given out for Grenada than were soldiers in the fighting.