"the lazy, ersatz pacifist mawkishness of Nightline"

Mark Steyn shows up Ted Koppel's ratings stunt for the fraud it was, pointing out that the cost is only part of the equation of war. Koppel's treatment shows his own vacuity.

[T]he cost of war is a tragedy for the families of the American, British and other coalition forces who've died in the last year. But we owe it to the dead, always, every day, to measure their sacrifice against the mission, its aims, its successes, its setbacks. And, if the cause is still just, then you honor the fallen by pressing on to victory -- and then reading the roll call of the dead.

When I considered this at the outset of this thing, I thought of all the ways young people may die with no point whatsoever, by drunk drivers, disease, drug abuse, etc. Everyone has to die. The important thing is whether your life meant something and left the world better for it. I think those lives passed that test. Those who spent their duty time humiliating prisoners and kids in Iraq have grieved their families, too, but without the nugget of pride in their sacrifice.

Steyn makes a more important point:

Our enemies have made a bet -- that the West in general and America in particular are soft and decadent and have no attention span; that the ''sleeping giant'' Admiral Yamamoto feared he'd wakened at Pearl Harbor can no longer be roused.

RTWT (Read the whole thing.)