Quote:
Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
This is hardly the first time that proponents have said: technological advances mean that this time, bombing really works! Similar claims were made during WWII. Bombing was going to close the Ho Chi Minh Trail. This time around, we have impressive video of a few precision weapons zooming down bunker air shafts, but the Pentagon and FOX were showing us the weapons that missed. I believe that the studies since the war have shown us that precision bombing wasn't. Shock and awe, anyone?
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As you noted, Dyson was talking about the costs of the bombing campaign, particularly in terms of lost planes and pilots. That was hardly the case in Iraq. You are trying to equate two things that are not nearly equal.
I believe that the bombing campaign in Iraq was very effective, and a big part of why the Iraqi army collapsed. The "shock and awe" campaign was not, but attacks on the infrastructure and military targets were. Unfortunately that conventional war was never the real challenge -- the post-war insurgency was. But I don't believe that insurgency was made any worse by the bombing; I think the invasion alone was enough to guarantee an insurgency and that the bombing campaign didn't make much difference. (Or maybe an errant cruise missle blew up the stockpiles of flowers and candy that Rumsfeld was anticipating?)
