Sunny Days in Heaven
Spiritual/Political/Philosophical Blog on the Nature of Truth and Falsehood and Heaven


Monday, April 26, 2004  

Politics over Lives

As often as I celebrate the bravery, skill, and decency of American servicemen, I sometimes mourn their condition. Time after time poiticians not only risk their lives in dubious causes or situations (Haiti, Kosovo, Somalia, etc.), but more often than not, those poiticians interfere with the military doing their jobs effectively.

Fallujah and Najaf (and parts of Baghdad) are cases in point. Rather than crush the terrorists and thugs in offensive operations that favor the CPA, Bush has chosen to allow American soldiers to be killed in drips and drabs by approaching the problem weakly and piecemeal.

This concern for Iraqis' tender feelings, the continuing delusion that we can win hearts and minds by being nice guys, and absorbing deadly blows is ludicrous.

I cannot imagine being an officer on the ground having to obey orders that will lose him men to no good purpose.

It is time for us to "go Roman" as comedian Dennis Miller would say.

The war on terrorists has thrust us into a Roman mold, indeed. Since we cannot remain isolated from the world which can now make weapons of mass destruction, and enjoys using them on Americans, we are forced to enter and occupy lands where we are not welcome.

It's time we abandoned any notion of nation building and establishing democracies, and imposed a rule of law through appointed surrogates with American muscle to back them up.

A strategy of divide and conquor also sounds fine to me. Break Iraq up into three parts and leave the Sunnis the desert and dirt.

We need a willingness to make ruthless decisions if we wish to survive and save the lives of both American civilians and soldiers.

We should applaud any leader who goes to war reluctantly, but once decided, such war should be waged with power. America has supported Bush's foray into Iraq, but he is squandering that support the longer he fails to act decisvely on the ground and protect lives by aggressive campaigning to destroy criminals and islamofascists.

It doesn't do the Iraqi people any good in the long or short run either, when we fail to crush lawlessness.

posted by Mark Butterworth | 12:08 PM |

links
archives