“Allowing the Army and Marine Corps to be ground down in a voluntary, fool’s errand of a war isn’t something I find a lot of enthusiasm for.”
The question is, how accurate is your description?
If it turns out that the missing WMD we KNOW once existed in Iraq are raw chemical, biological or nuclear materials now in the hands of terror network, used to make dirty bombs for U.S. cities, or that removing the Hussein regime happened to stop that event from becoming a reality, would you have enthusiasm for the mission then?
As a veteran, you should know a few key points.
1) Intelligence gathering is the imperfect task of learning that which the other side is working just as hard to hide. Not even France, Germany or Russia, all of whom blocked UN authorization for the mission, had any different intelligence than we did. They were just profiting by keeping Hussein in business, so they didn’t care.
2) There are only two forms of defense.
a) Hunker down, fortify the fort and wait for the attack.
b) Pursue the enemy before they can attack.
As a veteran, I’m shocked that you miss the obvious?
The Iranians no longer have their most formidable regional adversary opposing them and are a giant step closer to their dream of the Shiite Crescent. AQ attracts volunteers on a daily basis solely because we're there.
Those are the obvious facts and I'm not the one who's missed them.
a) Hunker down, fortify the fort and wait for the attack.
b) Pursue the enemy before they can attack.
There is the million dollar point right there in a nut shell, the reason that Ron Paul and those who share his views have no business in a position of power at this time.
Let's look again:
a) Hunker down, fortify the fort and wait for the attack.
Reactionary but sometimes excellent stance, very effective through out history at times, when there were cannon and muskets and swords, say all the way up to 1945...
b) Pursue the enemy before they can attack.
Proactive, the only form of defense in an age where the technology to turn the fort into its component molecules roasted to a balmy 10,000 degrees without warning exists and has recklessly become spread to the nut jobs who like the idea of seeing their god after making him pleased with our demise.
Gee, now that Iran is shelling Iraq and has graciously "slowed" enrichment (very nice of them) we can come on home now, hole up and say "Please oh please Mr. Muslim man sir, don't hurt us, we will leave you alone, and if you want we can send some money for the moon god to make peace...
Riiiight...
The problem with (b) is that it's unconstitutional.
Article I / Section 8 / Clause 11
Powers of Congress
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
When war is duly declared, it is not merely a war between this and the adverse government in their political characters. Every man is, in judgment of law, a party to the acts of his own government, and a war between the governments of two nations, is a war between all the individuals of the one, and all the individuals of which the other nation is composed. Government is the representative of the will of all the people, and acts for the whole society. This is the theory in all governments, and the best writers on the law of nations concur in the doctrine, that when the sovereign of a state declares war against another sovereign, it implies that the whole nation declares war, and that all the subjects of the one, are enemies to all the subjects of the other. Very important consequences concerning the obligations of subjects, are deducible from this principle.
James Kent, Commentaries
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FYI – Law of Nations Article I / Section 8 / Clause 10
To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;
Having given you this general idea and description of the law of nations; need I expatiate on its dignity and importance? The law of nations is the law of sovereigns. In free states, such as ours, the sovereign or supreme power resides in the people. In free states, therefore, such as ours, the law of nations is the law of the people. Let us again beware of being misled by an ambiguity, sometimes, such is the structure of language, unavoidable. When I say that, in free states, the law of nations is the law of the people; I mean not that it is a law made by the people, or by virtue of their delegated authority; as, in free states, all municipal laws are. But when I say that, in free states, the law of nations is the law of the people; I mean that, as the law of nature, in other words, as the will of nature's God, it is indispensably binding upon the people, in whom the sovereign power resides; and who are, consequently, under the most sacred obligations to exercise that power, or to delegate it to such as will exercise it, in a manner agreeable to those rules and maxims, which the law of nature prescribes to every state, for the happiness of each, and for the happiness of all.
James Wilson, Of the Law of Nations, Lectures on Law
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Nowhere is there an authority to declare war on an ideology, no matter how abhorrent we consider that ideology to be.
If we expect the nations of the world to respect our sovereignty, we need to respect theirs.