Blame the politicans for it for trying to fight Kinder and Gentler Wars. Yes I said that. If we had fought Italy, Japan, and Germany, like we are fighting now we would have lost. To be exact we sacraficed three wars to the Kinder and Gentler War concept. To put it in words and context it's meant to be in. War is Hell. It knows no innocents. You do not go in and try to judge who's who in a given area you take the area out with the least harm to your own. Says who you ask? My source would indeed suprise you. A moral war is one with a clear defined goal of victory and not a limited smack on the wrist to your enemy. That lesson was forgotten by our leaders in Korea, Nam, and The Gulf War. We purposely tied the very hands of the warriors we sent to fight just as we do now. Worse we as a nation judged them worse than our enemy we were fighting if they did not hold to this insane policy of fighting the war in a politically correct manner. For that we paid a price of still having our enemy to torment us. They laugh at our leaders lack of resolve and test it often.
If we're going to talk war let's define it. I find no better definitions of war than by pehaps the greatest military general to grace this earth. When he fought to win he won. His battle plan was given to him and he left death and destruction in his wake. His hands were not tied in a PC mire of special rules of engagement. His name was Joshua. Our leaders would do this nation a big service to learn his stratagies and use them.
Yes this is the way wars have been fought for centuries. Up till the mid part of this century to be exact. Funny we spared not even our own brothers & sons not so long ago in our nations history in a civil war. Why? Because we considered the belief or disagreement worth fighting for AT ALL COST!
Now we base our enemy on some vauge report of factions within a nation listed on a state department report? If the nation harbors them the nation is our enemy. THAT IS WAR. You destroy that nation with a vengance. The next nation wanting to cross you thinks twice. I suspect this post to have a short life. But the subject of war was brought up and I think this serves as a reminder to just how far we are off course on this matter of our nations survival.
BTW if this offends anyone the act done upon our nation on 9/11 offends me. I just disagree in the method being used to resolve the matter.
Much of what I wrote in post 49 may seem as if I'm forgiving the way the "war" is being fought behind my juxtaposed scenes. I'm not necessarily, and I am much in agreement with you. I think that our ability to instantly analyze every word as it hits print or is spoken causes us to overreact to some things that occur and also forces the adminstration to fight this war in a very different manner than past wars. We are jumping on bits of news before they are even complete, while in the past these bits of news cambe back to us weeks or months after they occurred. I question whether we are in a forest / trees scenario. The older, seasoned advisors for Bush may well be executing a multi-month or multi-year plan the way a chess player exercises his plan. We often criticize the loss of a pawn, but have no idea what the true game plan is on the part of the player. Obviously, that player cannot announce those plans and may even throw them off with a false loss on occassion.
Perhaps things like the Internet, 24 Hr. News, FR and the like has given us all too much ability to play armchair general? I don't know, but I've concluded that I have no idea what is really going on and I can't pretend that I do any longer.