LAND OF THE WEE AND HOME OF THE KNAVE
Now it's easy for me to bemoan America's lack of resolve to lose 3,001 lives in the war on terror. I won't be called to fight and neither will my kids. But that does not mean I forfeit my right to an opinion.
I saw a young man in the airport recently who had lost both arms and both legs in combat, and any problem I may have is pathetically puny by comparison. But that does not forfeit my right to an opinion, and my opinion is that our lack of will to wage war, our lack of will to sacrifice American lives for the good of the nation and the world, to sacrifice x actual lives to prevent or stave off x+y potential deaths, is going to have grave consequences here and abroad--consequences that will ultimately mandate war at a far greater cost in terms of lives, dollars and anxiety.
Let's say we've lost 3,000 soldiers in combat. In just the 10 most deadly battles of the US Civil War, 288,776 troops were killed, so at present we have lost about 1/100th of that subtotal, or a cent on the dollar. Yes, every life is precious, and yes, all the rest, but that does not shut down the discussion. In war some of your own get killed, and there is no other way to win a war, shock and awe notwithstanding.
Having a foothold in the region, and having influence over who receives the massive wealth from those oil reserves, is vitally important to our national interests and to global security. Absent our will/resolve/testosterone to assert our will on the ground, the world is about to become an extremely dangerous place.
War is hell. Fine, true. Every life is a treasure, yes. But war does not increase death. Each is appointed once to die, whether in bed or on the battlefield, and some deaths are more noble than others. I would still like to see some overwhelming military force, and let the political chips fall where they may. It is not too late to kill as many bad guys as possible before beginning the pullout, and the day after Christmas is not too soon to deploy.
2 comments:
Very rarely do you get a chance to read an uncomfortable truth written with such poetry.
Every life is a treasure, blibbity blobbity. Yes, yes. Ever since we became the major world power in the 50's, we can't fight a war without it tearing popular opinion down the middle. There are enough people complacent in their high standard of living that they think war is no longer necessary.
Every military action now gets compared to Vietnam but there will never be protests and riots like in that era due to the fact that people were conscripted for that war yet now we employ an all-volunteer fighting force. Individual soldiers may not want this war but they can't deny that fighting it is the job for which they applied.
The brutality in this current war seems to go one way - good guys getting blown to bits in the marketplace and beheaded via live stream. Bush doesn't seem overly concerned with public opinion but as Newt said, "stubborness is not a strategy."
Something like 13% of the Iraqi populace has already fled the country - the only people left are either too poor to flee or are merrily killing innocents. It's time to tell whomever remains to retreat to a far corner for a week, unarmed, while anybody left in the streets is summarily eradicated. Whatever extreme action is needed, let's see a conclusion, and if not conclusion, let's at least see a direction.
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