What with all the budget talk, I was just wondering whether that third war – or kinetic scope-limited whachamacallit – was still going. You remember, it was in all the papers for a couple of days. So I guess things have gone quiet because it’s all wrapped up now? Apparently not.
Oh yeah, that one....Things aren't going so well, are they?
Glenn Reynolds reminds us that he said when this all began: "Waging war halfheartedly, on the cheap, and by committee is not a formula for success."
My father was a Marine in WWII who fought on Iwo Jima, a rather non-significant island in the Pacific, where there were 2,400 US casualties after only the first day of the battle which raged for weeks. About 19,000 Marines in total were killed during all of World War II --and one-third of those Marines killed in action died during the Battle of Iwo Jima! Amazingly, one in three Marines at the Battle of Iwo Jima was either killed or wounded.
I know this because I was raised on stories of WWII and still have my father's Marine scrapbooks. 50 years after the battle, he still talked about it and how proud he was to have served and fought for his country.
In those days, America was in it to win it. We didn't go to war unless we were determined to fight as if our lives and our freedoms depended on it.
Just once in my adult lifetime, I'd like to see us fight a war, sure of our values and our cause; and utterly determined to continue the fight until we have won.
From the left's perspective, I'm sure this makes me a bloodthirsty warmonger; but what's the effing point of all these timid, quarter-hearted (not even half)
kinetic military actions? The "rules of engagement" should be simple and direct: do what needs to be done to bring the fight to a successful end.
In the long run, not only will our wars be more successful; but I'll bet that the loss of live (both our own and any civilians) will be minimized (what a thought!). No wonder we don't want to hear about Libya anymore; or Iraq; or Afghanistan. Every war turns into a long, drawn out and pathetic standoff with the barbarians; who we will eventually appease and then surrender to so that they can come back to haunt us over and over again.
As Steyn says, "...if you wanted to devise a forlorn emblem of the impotence of the hyperpower, this non-war for non-victory is hard to beat."
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