War, and winning one

It seems to me that the American public (and our President) has a serious disconnect between war and the consequences of it. I listen to people who believe our campaign in Iraq is a just one. That eventually we will pacify the place, install a democratic government, and eventually make it the 51st state. And then I listen to the folks who want nothing to do with the war at all. And they say we should pull out, say 'sorry, no hard feelings', and give 'em back their country.

To the latter, I say no. If we up and split, abandoning Iraq, we'll be just as bad as that idiot (President Mission Accomplished) who began the war in the first place. As soon as the first American boot crossed into Iraq from Kuwait, we owned the place. Good, bad, indifferent, it's ours. As Americans, as the people we believe we are, we cannot cut and run. Our stature in the world has been reduced as it is with Bush at the helm, let us not sink lower. We have to leave a viable nation behind when we depart. Anything less would be inexcusable.

To the former I say, look around at the news coverage from Iraq, and Afghanistan to some extent, the dead, the wounded, the homeless. This is what war is and, had this one been not so badly planned, more would be dead. More Iraqis anyway. Ask the folks from the 'Greatest Generation' what it took to bring Japan to their knees. Read history, people. You could compare WW2 Japan to the Middle East today. At least the fanatical Japanese mindset of the time. Look what it took. Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That was after almost every Japanese city was firebomed beforehand. A hundred thousand died in Tokyo in one night. That's how we won, folks, by killing so many of them they couldn't go on. That's what war is.

War isn't some touchy-feely shit, a threat to be leavied lightly. War is killing more of the other guy's guys than they kill of yours. Destroying more of his cities and his infrastructure until he says, no mas. You don't go into a country expecting to be greeted as liberators. You go in expecting to kill as many of them as possible in the shortest amount of time to destroy their will to resist. This war in Iraq was initiated for profit, period. One of the wrong reasons to go to war. Hopefully this is a lesson learned for the next twit who is debating going to war instead of buying a red sports car.

But, as we all know, we are at war. Over a thousand U.S. troops are dead, over twelve thousand wounded, and God knows how many innocent Iraqis. Know what? We have to fight this like a war or our kids over there will be targets for years. The answer in Iraq is double the troops and break out the B-52s.

As you all know, I'm a 'kill 'em all and let God sort out the mess', kinda guy. The little use I have for Bob MacNamara, he said something once that always stuck with me. He said 'if the Americans had lost WW2, we would have been charged with war crimes for what we did to Japan.' When you are fighting a fanatical mindset, i.e. people who are willing to die for their cause, you have to break their will before you build them schools.

Now, to me, war is the most horrible thing one group of people can do to another. It should be the last choice of an enlightened leader. But if you're in one, you'd better be prepared to win it. We're in one, folks. Our fearless leader made the wrong choice to begin with, but next to cutting and running, we're going to have to make the best of it. We're going to have to seal Iraq's borders and begin door-to-door shakedowns. Get the weapons off the street (as they did in Germany after WW2) and do some serious policing. Once law and order is restored, then you can start building shit for the locals. All Bush and his cohorts thought was 'easy oil', and hoped the Iraqis would accept 'anything is better than Saddam'.

Bush is always talking about 'these terrorists respect strength'. Well we haven't shown much. Do you know how these folks have been fighting wars for the last million years or so? When they used to go invade another place, they'd kill just about everybody in it. Whoever's left are slaves. Do you think the shit we're doing in Iraq and Afghanistan is a show of strength to them? Have you forgotten about the Russians in Afghanistan? Guess what's happening again over there while we're fucking around in Iraq? They see the same commitment on our part as they did on the Russians'. World opinion is about the same too. One day, young cadets at West Point, Annapolis, and Colorado Springs will have to study the Iraq War as a case of how not to fight a war.

We can't afford four more years of Bush's strength.