CASHILL REVIEWS "LETTERS"

Clint Eastwood's new movie, "Letters From Iwo Jima," is about the battle for Iwo Jima from the Japanese perspective. It followed "Flags Of Our Fathers," which is from the American viewpoint.

Jack Cashill reviewed the film--"Letters From Iwo Jima"--and found the critics had missed something. In reviewing the battle, Cashill makes an interesting comparison to the war in Iraq.

Given the way the Japanese had previously defended beaches, U.S. planners worked under the presumption that the island would fall in five days. As in such warlike games as chess or football, however, real war allows each side to make intelligent decisions to advance its own interests.

Liberal critics of the Iraq war have overlooked this truism. They seem to have convinced themselves that all American failures result from "blunders" or "gross mismanagement" for which someone should "apologize." They give little credit to the opposing forces for resisting creatively and none at all to themselves for encouraging that resistance.

The struggle for Iwo Jima involved just such strategic thinking from a savvy adversary, which is why it proved so costly. Beginning Feb. 19, 1945, the five hellish weeks of Iwo Jima cost more than twice as many American lives as the four years of Iraq.

Still, as far as I know, there were no calls to bring our troops home "now" or to "redeploy" them to some safer place. The 7,000 Cindy Sheehans of Iwo Jima suffered in heroic silence.

I think you'll find the entire article very interesting. World Net Daily.