Patton is a great example of a great military leader who would have been a terrible political leader.

It's important for a soldier to be decisive a strong. It's important for a politician to have popular support. These are very different qualities.

Collateral damage is not a term used in civilian matters. Anybody caught up in any conflict will in political debate and in the press be judged as unacceptable.

There was that blog that kid in Baghdad wrote during the war where he exemplified the ambivalent Iraqi position. He was pretty clear that he hated Saddam Hussein and wanted to be rid of him. But at the same time he did not forgive USA for any civilian casualties. No matter how much we may rationally may understand how unreasonable this demand is, this is how normal people think. I do. If there's a war on and a friend or relative of me dies, and the attacker is from some completely alien source, in my head I'd blame the aliens for their death.

So basically the Iraqi's will blame USA for everything bad happening but assume anything good happening is a result of their own work. Just plain human dumb-ass nature. We're all guilty of this thinking. USA knew that going in and will naturally have to deal with taking the blame for all eternity for anything bad every happening in Iraq from the war onward.

That is a large reason why I thought it was idiotic by the USA to attack with such a small coalition. If it would have been more countries in the invading force there would have been more countries to take the blame. A large group always turn into an anonymous mass, and USA wouldn't have to deal with all this animosity.

Just in the same way, US citizens will in general be completely non-plussed about the Iraqi reaction and just assume they're ungrateful and think collateral damage should be acceptable for the Iraqi's. Just really dumb ass positive thinking.

All in all, when it comes to our own, we all have a tendency to be really stupid and short sighted. All of us.