Our Weird Way of War

NRO ^ | 5/7/04 | Victor Davis Hanson

[bwteim]

" Recently we were within hours of smashing the resistance in Fallujah once we accepted war anew. But when the mujahedeen, Gollum-like, decided to slither out in the open, then in terror scampered to safety, then remerged on all fours defiant and barking when we stopped firing, our forbearance and fear of global-televised condemnation handed them a victory they did not earn. In short, we should have listened to Sam and strangled the creep on the spot."


Great article.

PING

[TexasRepublic]

We are at war with bloody Islam and we should never apologize for any means of defending ourselves or demoralizing and destroying the enemy.

[kissmyconservativebutt]

No, the challenge again is that bin Laden, the al Qaedists, the Baathist remnants, and the generic radical Islamicists of the Middle East have mastered the knowledge of the Western mind. Indeed they know us far better than we do ourselves.

Hell, half the freepers here think we should coddle the friggin Terrorists. We should have leveled Fallujah, blew up the entire mosque with that idiot in it, and then carpet bombed Baghdad and Tikrit...just because we can. The world's jaw would have hit the fv(king floor and I bet we wouldn't have heard a peep out of anyone for awhile. When someone does open their mouth, do it again, but harder. Maybe toss an errant nuke over to Tehran. Oops, we meant that to go to Hollywood, sorry.

[kissmyconservativebutt]

Absolute power and surprise works wonders on an enemy. And I just haven't seen that in this Iraq conflict. "Shock and awe" my a$$! Wanna shock me? Let me see a giant mushroom cloud and a bunch of Arabs, French, Germans, and other socialist pigs begging for us to stop.

[bwteim]

Speaking of demoralizers in the home team, did you catch Mark Dayton (D-Minn.) trying to chastise Rummy today?

[arthurus]

toss an errant nuke over to Tehran

Mecca

[arthurus]

Mecca

Then PyongYang

[Revolting cat!]

They grasp that we are not so much worried about being convicted of being illiberal as having the charge even raised in the first place.

Bullseye! Yep, look in the mirror: aren't we a nation of people who "learned everything they need to knows in kindergarden" and fear nothing more than being accused of "unfairness"!

[noscreenname]

Have you ever read any of Pournelle's "The Mercenary" stories ("Falkenberg's Legion", "Prince of Sparta" and "Go tell the Spartans")?

I'm glad someone here holds similar views to mine (although I've been very reluctant about voicing them).

Democrat though he was, Truman completely understood "overwhelming force". And "peace through superior firepower" way before those concepts were accepted as politically IN-correct solutions.....

[TalBlack]

".....their modus operandi is to push all the way up to war — now provoking, now backing down, sometimes threatening, sometimes weeping — the key being to see the struggle in the long duration as a war of attrition, if you will, rather than a brief contest of annihilation."

And, so, THEY are calling the shots.

"If, on occasion, an exasperated and furious West sinks to the same level — renegade prisoner guards gratuitously humiliating or torturing naked Iraqi prisoners on tape — all the better, as proof that the elevated pretensions..."


None of this can happen if your enemy is dead, in droves and not able to spin anything. It's over. Life goes on.

[lainde]

Thank goodness for Victor. I have been waiting for him to comment. I'm never disappointed! Thank you for posting the entire article!

[lainde]

That's the "take no prisoners" approach that would have prevented this entire "humiliation" incident. I just don't get the guns and dropping peanut butter and cookies approach. I thought the purpose of war was to break the enemies will.

[Iscool]

My view is that we should (have used) use any and all means available to prevent losing even a single American life in Iraq. If we're not there to win at all costs (to the enemy), we should pull up stakes and get out of there...Pronto...

[winker]

I remember a speech the President gave shortly after the Afgan War began and paraphrasing him he said that "THIS WAR" would be unlike any other war we have seen or heard about and would be seen on some occasions and not seen on others. It is apparent that this is exactly what has happened because it is over the tops of the average American's heads. It is not in any way like we are used to seeing a war prosecuted in our past and it is causing a lot of problems understanding what is going on at times.

I for one am dizzy trying to follow its twisting paths of stopping and starting and even bailing out when we had them by the throat in Falaugia the other day. War is a confusing fog of subtrafuge; bobbing and weaving manouvers that form or at least is supposed to end up at a finisiing point. One thing I am increasingly concerned with is an exit strategy designed to pass the reigns of power over to a new government, so we can get positioned to fight another day. The prisoner problem faced in all wars is a result of a lack of understanding of what total war really is. It is not a neat clean sterile environment that comes and goes quickly. This war is exactly what cultured Americans are not prepared for in any shape or form. It will be unlike anything we have been involved in in all our history. We are being hunted and stalked by a relentless savage all or nothing mentality driven by radical islam. To even have a chance of staying out in front we will have to prosecute a BLOODY nasty Kill them All Campaign designed to flood the battlefields with blood and unimaginable gore if we are to come away with a victory. If we had had this approach going in this horrific mess at the beginning we would not have the prisoner problem we are now bogged down with. America has trained Killer Warriors who know the art of WAR. This fact alone would have kept the numbers of prisoners we have to warehouse at the lowest minimums. Is very simple my dears if they want war by their actions then we taket to them in the strongest BLOODIEST fashion we can; and I mean kill every last one of them we can get our sights on. This fact alone planted in the enemy's conscious mind will not stop those determined to die anyway but it certainly will give them no time to lick their wounds. This is what this WAR we are now in is all about folks and you may as well face the music we are now and will forever be the enemy until Jehovah God comes for us in the Rapture!

[kissmyconservativebutt]

I'm glad someone here holds similar views to mine (although I've been very reluctant about voicing them).Oh yeah, you will get flamed for being neoconservative on this site.

There are alot of lukewarm conservatives on this site whose foreign policy 'expertise' is garbled with their sense of 'humanity' for foreign terrorists and their families. They don't seem to realize that smart weapons were made by military and former military to ensure a target was destroyed, not to lessen collateral damage or save civilians. The military during WWII did not like using 200+ tons of bombs to take out one factory. But ever since Vietnam, the media and liberals have caused simple minded politicians to lose focus of the task at hand whenever we have fought a war. That task being; destroy the enemy, demoralize the enemy, and ensure that the enemy will not even think of wanting to fight you again when you are done. Absolute victory. Now smart weapons are the so called humane weapons. They are being used correctly, but we have lost site of places like Dresden, where we leveled cities and crushed the enemy's will to fight. We haven't had a problem with the Germans or Japanese since WWII. Every damn time we turn around there is some pig islamic militant terrorizing some part of civilized society. The only reason we are in Iraq right now is because it was never done correctly under the first Bush. And it isn't being done correctly now. Iraq should be a smoking heap. Those people that did survive the war may resent us, but their fear would be far greater. And in time they would understand why we did what we did, just as the Germans and Japanese did. It's about our survival, nothing personal. The best way to break the enemy is to take everything he loves (family and way of life), or at the bare minimum let him know that what he loves is not off limits.

But God no, we cannot do that. That is inhumane. War is supposed to be pretty. We cannot even harm one civilian...that would be aweful. And we are 'better' than they are. Those types of beliefs are going to ensure that islam is a pain in our ass for a long time to come. Germany, Japan, took less than a decade to become a problem and cease to be a problem. When did Iran take American hostages? How long have the Israelis had to deal with the filth known as palistinians?

We need to nip this problem in the bud, but we won't. S, we are not gonna win the war on terror. This country will get hit again. And unfortunately, it may take a nuke here in this country to wake up the people of this country. These bastards are not going away until we put them in their place.

Sorry for the rambling, but people have lost site of history...like all history. Public schools the problems? I don't know. I just know that people think we can beat terrorism(Islam...the enemy) humanely. All I can so is 'told you so' later. Of course, some of the short term memory posters here...it wouldn't make a difference.

[noscreenname]

Thank you.
History.
Yeah. It took the Romans three attempts at Carthage to finally get it right. I read an article the other day about imposing 'the rules of war' on mercenaries. Being written by a member of the mainscream media it was of course supposed to alert us to the growing preponderance of unregulated 'contract' soldiers being allowed to operate outside the 'accepted norms' of warfare and how we need to reign them in!

Once again, I reference Pournell's (and SM Serling) Mercenary series.

The conduct of a loud vocal minority in the 70's is what got us into all these current messes to begin with. They caused the gutting of the intelligence community, castrated the military and spawned a whole host of gutless politicians who are attempting to 'raise our consciousness' through higher taxes to help the 'down trodden' (and line their own greedy pockets), 'improve' our image with every socio-lib-commie nation on earth and turn us against ourselves through class warfare.

We, as a nation, have not prosecuted a war effectively since we turned our resolve over to the scrUN in 1951 (Korea).

War is not supposed to be gentle, pretty or simulcast worldwide. War is dirty, ugly and full of acts that should be designed to destroy your enemy's will to oppose you. It should be left to warriors!

[Libertarianize the GOP]

If the Arabs are becoming masters of the image game in western media and how to manipulate the public then they have also learned the basics of how the Western Political Process actually works. Who say you cant teach Muslims about Democracy?

[Clemenza]

Although Baghdad was worth preserving, we should have gone Dresden on Fallujah.

[Lando Lincoln]

Great article....here's a ping to our FRiend, Tolik.

Lando