Iraq: tear it all down, then rebuild
In his column, America, Iraq, and the question of total war, John Dillin lays out the case that if the war in Iraq is truly worth fighting then we need to fight to win. No pulling our punches, no fighting with one hand tied behind our backs, no half-measures.
And he’s right. Quoting Omar Bradley, Douglas MacArthur, George Patton and using William T. Sherman’s famous march through Georgia as an example, Dillin makes the case that we have to pound our enemies into dust. The rebuilding can come later. Right now, the critical goal is to destroy the enemies will to fight.
President Bush himself has failed to grasp this simple truth. And Democrats, concerning the war and the heightened threat we face if we fail, would not recognize this simple truth if it slapped them across the face. But the failing is not just a political one. Our whole culture, increasingly ignorant of how much effort, sacrifice, and suffering it took to defeat monsters like Hitler, finds it harder and harder to act with resolve. It defies explanation that we rallied to crush the Axis powers during World War II yet shrink from a conflict where the current enemy is nowhere near as powerful as either Germany or Japan. And we, by comparison, are vastly more militarily powerful than any previous nation in history.
As General Sherman once observed, “war is all hell.” That’s why one side tastes defeat the other side tastes victory. And we must taste victory.
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