Collateral damage you say? We could have never won that war today!.
Statements like this are actually pretty silly.
We get hung up about collateral damage today for two reasons. First: due to guided bomb technology there's very little reason for it, especially for the sorts of wars we've fought for at least the past 40 years. Second, we haven't been fighting total wars since Korea: we've been squashing little countries (not that they didn't need squashing).
If it ever came to total war again, you'd see us revert to our old and savage ways.