"You apparently must have a lot of French blood in you Ed.. Because you always seem ready to surrender at the first sign of the fight getting too tough for your liking."
Yeah, you, Bush and Cheney are the tough ones. You can send our young men and women to Iraq and Afghanistan, see them come home ripped by bullets and bombs, some of them dead, and go on and on about being tough.
I'm not like that. I see people getting killed fighting in my name and I wonder whether the war is worth it, wonder whether the strategy is effective, wonder whether there is another way to protect our interests and question the tactics. And when I see that we're pushing a string or that there is another way to move forward without sacrificing so many or our guys, then I'm all for taking another direction, EVEN WHEN THAT DIRECTION COULD BE SEEN AS A "SURRENDER."
You see, I'm not so dumbshit proud at the expense of others that I won't bring our soldiers back home alive from a conflict where they're sitting ducks and where it's only a matter of time before we have to leave.
"Think out of the box.. analyze the threat, and counter it with creative thinking that denies your enemy the advantage."
OK, here goes:
1, I won't fight a war of occupation on his home turf a half a world way at a tremendous cost that I cannot maintain without dangerously exhausting my military and economic capital.
2, I won't fight him using tactics that increase and magnify the number and the passion of those who will support him logistically and by laying down their lives.
3. I won't take ground that I can't hold in locales where he has cheap, relatively safe and effective strategies that will inflict the death of a thousand cuts on my soldiers.
4. I'll look long and hard at long term ways to neutralize the enemy using cheaper, less bloody and more effective measures to protect my interests, including letting him have what are apparent short term victories when I know that he will not be able to hold that ground, will lose the support of the populations he controls, and will eventually be naked in the eyes of the world.
5. And, as opposed to fighting for his turf, if he ever actually mounted a true offensive against us I'd blow him the hell out of the water and never lose any sleep over it.
You see, I don't believe in playing war. If you HAVE to go to war then win it and get out. If you have to play policeman for another nation, stay home.
But then I don't get a jolt of endorphins fantasizing about my soldiers kicking ass and taking names. Ed |
