I agree with most of what you're saying, McGrath. But let's remember that this self-centered aspect ("our casualties matter, 'enemy' casualties don't") isn't unique to America. Every country that has ever fought a war was either indifferent to 'enemy' casualties, or enthusiastic about them. That's war -- I don't like it any better than you do, but it's the nature of the beast. And it didn't start with Sherman, or Napoleon either -- the issue is as old as war itself (although the "rules of war" concept that exempts civilians from the harsh realities of war probably got a big boost in Victorian times).

I admit that there's a certain logic in all of this that I find compelling, in a horrific way. It isn't only the soldiers on the front lines that wage war -- it's the whole society that's backing them up, with its money, its industrial production, and its enthusiasm for the "cause". So why should everyone except the soldiers be exempt from the suffering that war causes? Remember, when Lyndon Johnson was escalating the war in Vietnam, he deliberately sought to insulate the country at large from the realities and costs of that war. It could be (has been) argued that this is a big part of the reason that war lasted so long -- the country was prosperous, and the small portion of the polulation that was suffering the most had no influence (in fact, for most of the war the average age of an American soldier was 19, and the voting age was 21). The result was that public opinion against the war took a long time to coalesce, while the killing dragged on.