The Wisdom of William Tecumseh Sherman and the War on Terror

Pontiac | 7/26/2010 | Pontiac

[Pontiac]

William Tecumseh Sherman is either a hated war criminal or a honored war hero in the United States in this article I do not debate this point but only draw upon his wisdom as it applies to war. In what follows I will apply this wisdom to our present long and destined to be longer war against the World Islamic Terrorist Organizations.

The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan have been the subject of a great deal of controversy in the last decade. The words “Bush’s war” and the questions of the Iraq war’s legality have been the subject of many a written word in our national press. This is however not the subject of this piece. Today I will expound upon the wisdom of these wars and wars yet to begin.

The war in Afghanistan is the result of an act of war perpetrated by Islamic extremist terrorist on our nation. This is an indisputable fact. The active participants in this act were from various Middle Eastern Muslim nations primarily Saudi Arabia but also Yemini and Egyptian. The stated grievances of these men were the United States support of Israel and the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia.

There are other unstated but strong motives that these men had. These motives have been expressed by like minded supporters of these terrorist actions. These motives are the spread of Western culture to the Muslim countries. In the minds of the fundamentalist Muslim the worst of the West influences is on women. That a woman can show bare skin let alone her face in public is to the Arab Muslim unacceptable and an affront to Allah. To the Taliban (the ruling power in Afghanistan at the time of the September 11, 2001 attack on this country) television, music, make up, dancing, soccer, kite flying and much more were forbidden as un-Islamic Western practices. To these people everything Western was evil. Another fundamental tenet of Islam is that all the world must be brought under the control of Islam, by sword if necessary.

For these reasons the Islamic terrorist brought war to our country. Our support of Israel may have been the precipitating act in their minds for the attack but their desire to humble the preeminent non-Islamic country in the world was large in their minds.

I will not discuss the legality of the Iraq war more than to state that congress voted on and passed a resolution authorizing the war and had available to them all of the intelligence documents concerning weapons of mass destruction that was available to the Bush administration.

The need for the war is however in my opinion undeniable. Saddam Hussein was a financial supporter of world wide Islamic terror. He had used chemical weapons on his own citizens he at the very least was gathering material to produce a nuclear weapon. Although we did not find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq there is evidence that he moved the weapons and the factories to Syria during the period before the war when the Bush administration was trying to negotiate Saddam’s peaceful surrender.

The point I wish to make about the Iraq war is that although direct ties between Al Qaida and Iraq are few Saddam had numerous ties with other terrorist organizations such as Hamas and the IRA. After the Iraq war a terrorist training camp was found there that had a Boeing 727 fuselage used for training terrorist hi-jackers.

Political correctness and multiculturalism has been much used in the arguments against these wars; either explicitly or in couched phrases; the failure of the government or the press to use the word terrorist or to openly name the people we are fighting as Muslim or Islamist is simply foolish political correctness. The first rule in war is to know your enemy. If you can not name your enemy, if you can not allow yourself to express anger and hatred at your enemy you will not defeat that enemy.

The press has spent a great deal of ink saying how the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has harmed the reputation of the US and made us a pariah in international affairs. William Tecumseh Sherman arguably the most effective Union General of the Civil War had this to say about war and popularity:

“If the people raise a great howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war and not popularity seeking.”

The United States is at war with people who choose to be at war with us and drew first blood. We do not have a choice of whether to go to war or not. This war is also not only a war of Islam against the United State. Islam is at war around the world. It is at war in Indonesia, the Philippines Islands, several African Countries, Europe, and even the Middle East itself. These Islamist are not simply trying to convert the world to Islam by the sword they also seek to purify Islam were it already exist. This is literally a world war. We are at war and we do not have the luxury of being kind and gentile with those who wish to kill us. I again turn to the wisdom of William Tecumseh Sherman:

“War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over. I would make this war as severe as possible, and show no symptoms of tiring till the South begs for mercy.”

The United States has made more effort than any nation at war ever has to limit the number of civilian casualties and yet the international press continues to excoriate the US for the incredibly few civilian dead in these wars. William Tecumseh Sherman had this to say:

“Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster.”

We now have the technology to minimize civilian casualties but they can not be eliminated and we can not allow fear of civilian casualties to prevent us from pursuing the enemy where ever he may hide. Our enemy knows of our reluctance to harm civilians and uses this against us. He has used civilian villages a refuge and taken up human shields as a tactic of defense. This is a war crime and we must not permit it to deter us. To do so will encourage its continued use and lead to further civilian deaths or our ultimate defeat because we become unwilling to kill the enemy. We must adopt William Tecumseh Sherman’s stated goal:

“My aim, then, was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us. Fear is the beginning of wisdom.”

We can not fight a war with half measures. It will only prolong the war and multiply the casualties. This should be the lesson of the Viet Nam war. A limited war is an endless war and can not be won.

I will end by again quoting the wisdom of William Tecumseh Sherman:

“War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen, and I say let us give them all they want.”

[Tublecane]

“Would you say the same about the air campaign against Germany and Japan in World War II?”

I think aerial warfare is barbaric and disgusting. Not that there was ever such a time when wars were fought by gentlemen on fields seperated from everyday reality like chessboards. I’ve read Thucydides and all that. Still, war always is the work of government, and used to be much more fought amongst themselves. Now they take their anger out on innocents. How sad is it that more civilians died in WWII than combatants? That wasn’t so easy before Death From Above.

But since everyone’s doing it, hey, whatever.

[bvw]

As a bottle of wisdom you are like a Klein bottle.

[Tublecane]

“Failure or no, was it a war crime?”

Answering that sort of question demonstrates why Kafka is so popular. Whosoever puts on war crime trials stay away from aerial campaigns first because it’s never been decisively cleared up and more importantly because no one wants to give it up. One thing is clear: if what results from Death From Above were carried out by ground troops, they would absolutely be prosecutable. But since they’re up in the sky, and they don’t have to watch their victims, apparently no one cares.

[Tublecane]

“As a bottle of wisdom you are like a Klein bottle.”

What’s more twisted, what I said or implying both sides in head-to-head combat are losers? Because I can list a whole lot of one-on-one battles that had winners.

[Sherman Logan]

Actually none of the confederate officers or officials were tried for their crimes, much less executed.

Almost right. One was tried and executed.

Captain Henry Wirz, commander at Andersonville.

[bvw]

In a one-on-one battle both sides lose, like this:

There are reasons to fight one on one, but winning that fight is not one of them.

[Non-Sequitur]

Almost right. One was tried and executed.

Yeah I remembered him right after I hit the post button. But the implication of the statement I was replying to was that some officers were executed for their treason. Wirz was not tried or convicted for his act of rebelling or for treason but for war crimes connected with Andersonville. His execution was warranted, and IMHO there are quite a few officers, both Union and confederate, who should have joined him on the gallows for their treatment of prisoners.

[Sherman Logan]

there are quite a few officers, both Union and confederate, who should have joined him on the gallows for their treatment of prisoners.

Agreed. CSA prison officials at least had the excuse that their society was crumbling and had trouble supplying what was reasonably enough not their highest priority. The guys running Union prisons had no such excuses.

[mstar]

That is the quote I'm thinking of. And as I suspected, you badly exaggerated Sherman's intent because you ignore the passage which follows.

I did not ignore the sentence you have quoted because it is based on Sherman's conclusion that there was not enough people in the U.S. to replace the planter class. See sentence below, once again;

If our country were like Europe crowded with people, I would say it would be easier to replace this class than to reconstruct it, subordinate to the policy of the nation; but as this is not the case, it is better to allow the planters with individual exceptions, gradually to recover their plantations, to hire any species of labor, and to adapt themselves to the new order of things."

[mstar]

Your selective outrage is duly noted.

Duly noted by whom? Is it THEM?

[mstar]

Thank you for your informative post. Blessings.

[rustbucket]

Thank you for your informative post. Blessings.

You're welcome. The best to you too. History is history and a fun hobby.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

‘The reason why Jefferson Davis et. al. were not tried, even thought they all asked for a trial’

Trial? Who said anything about a trial? I was referring to summary executions. the usual remedy in civil wars. If all of the losers are dead, they won’t resort to revolution again.

[central_va]

Trial? Who said anything about a trial? I was referring to summary executions. the usual remedy in civil wars. If all of the losers are dead, they won’t resort to revolution again.

Don't worry, after the next Civil War, the southern victors will be kind and gentle with our defeated Northern bretheren during Reconstruction II. I hope you won't mind the part when the Lincoln Memorial becomes the Davis-Lee memorial.

[mac_truck]

It is true that some stores were looted by Wheeler's retreating troops. Attempts were made by those troops under orders to remove government supplies so that the Federal troops would not have them, but they also looted.

Finally an admission that Confederate troops responsible for the safety of the city were directly involved in looting prior to the arrival of Union troops. Were there any other groups engaged in similar activities?

This link says fires were out but were then started by Sherman's men.

Another admission that fires were set prior to the arrival of Sherman's army. How did the fires get started and how long did they burn? Who ordered the cotton bales moved out of storage and lined up along the street? What was the purpose of doing that?

Q. -- You testified, a little while ago, that it was very likely they [Sherman's own men] might burn Columbia, and you permitted them, or your officers did -- permitted them to go about the town? A. -- I could have had them stay in the ranks, but I would not have done it, under the circumstances, to save Columbia. Q. -- Although you knew they were likely to burn Columbia, you would not restrain them to their ranks, even to save it? A. -- No, Sir. I would not have done such harshness to my soldiers to save the whole town. They were men, and I was not going to treat them like slaves. ...

I'm not sure what point you're trying to drive home here RB. There is ample evidence of looting and arson before the Federals ever arrived, and this from the Confederates assigned to safeguard the city.

How many Southerners actually died during the Union occupation of Columbia?

[Non-Sequitur]

Duly noted by whom? Is it THEM?

By me and the forum as a whole.

[Non-Sequitur]

You are having date problems again. Columbia was burned in February 1865. The failed burning of New York was in November 1864.

Yeah I did kind of mess that up, didn't I? Can't imagine what I was thinking. My bad.

There were a lot of retaliatory acts going on. As you know, Chambersburg was in response to Union General Hunter's destroying 1,000 homes in the Shenandoah Valley.

Exaggerated numbers aside, Hunter's actions were in response to guerilla activity that had resulted in a number of his men being captured and executed. The actual number of houses burned in retaliation were far fewer than 1000, but did include VMI.

The burning of Chambersburg was an attempt to show the North that the burning of Southern homes and towns that had been going on for years by Union troops could happen in the North as well.

So I take revenge on your action. You take revenge on my act of revenge. I take revenge on your act of revenge for my act of revenge. And so it goes. Why is revenge on one side justified while on the other it is not.

And it should be noted that the burning of Chambersburg could have been avoided if the good people of that city had only been able to come up with rebel monetary demands. Which begs the question, was Chambersburg burned out of revenge or because they couldn't like the rebel pockets?

IIRC, the burning of Lawrence was retaliation by the relatives of women and children taken as prisoners by Union forces and kept in a 7-year old building that collapsed and killed and injured some of prisoners.

So if an accident is justification for burning a town and murdering upwards of 200 civilians then where does it stop? Or is it that confederate acts of revenge are always justified and Union ones are not.

[Pontiac]

This is the sort of silly, false either/or choices that makes relativists look like geniuses.

But the point of strategy (or good strategy, rather) is to win as efficiently as possible.

I don’t see the “no half measures” mindset being particularly conducive to this concern.

The false choice is that you can make war on an enemy that has no moral code other than to kill his enemy and anyone that gets between him and his enemy be they friend or foe with rules of engagement that include “do not fire unless fired upon.

Certainly a general should try to win the war with as few casualties as possible, particularly on his side. He should only engage the enemy when necessary and sure of victory. Sherman believed this.

The half measures I spoke about were the rules of engagement that our political leaders have placed on our soldiers That so limit the freedom of action of out soldiers as to put them in unnecessary danger. The after the fact persecution of our counter intelligence groups concerning interrogation techniques (torture).

These half measures imposed by the political class on the US armed services have caused protracted war and unnecessary loss of life on both sides since Korea.

[mstar]

By me and the forum as a whole.

So the forum as a whole agrees with you.

[Non-Sequitur]

So the forum as a whole agrees with you.

You would have to ask them. But considering your steadfast refusal to condemn anyone of the period BUT Sherman as a racist then any reasonable person would reach the same conclusion.