Jacob Wesberg says we need conscription to lend a sense of urgency to the war. I think he has a point about how the voluntary army tends to innoculate much of America from the reality of war, but frankly, I’d sooner wait a decade for a political solution that I’d sign on to enslaving teeangers, then sending them off to their deaths.

One point Weisberg makes is worth noting, however, particularly for those war proponents who continue to cite the low body count on the U.S. side in dismissing comparisons to past wars, or suggestions that this thing has drug on too long:

A soldier’s odds of being killed in Iraq are somewhat lower than they were in Vietnam, but this does not make it a safer place for combatants. The risk of being injured in Iraq is significantly higher than it was in Vietnam–3.1 percent of all those who have served, as opposed to 1.8 percent over a much longer period in Vietnam, according to Newsweek. Thanks to striking advances in field medicine, soldiers who would have died in any other war now survive, but they often do so with catastrophic, life-altering injuries.

Those advances in technology are wonderful, but they also gloss over the toll this war’s taking on the generation fighting it. The lower death rate is great. But it’s more than counterbalanced by the fact that, proportionally, we’re sending three times as many troops home minus hands, feet, and limbs. Those are significant casualties, even if they don’t have the same psychological effect on the home front as the body count.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 23rd, 2006 at 3:06 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.