The "exit strategy" is to stop bombing. Exit strategies are for wimps like Colin Powell and George Bush (who you recall encouraged each other to back out of Iraq when the slaughter was just getting good. They never should have released the pictures of the carnage on the road. It turned everyone's stomachs, including Colin Powell's.
I always liked Mayor Daley's "exit strategy" for Vietnam. He told Lyndon "Back the f***ing boats up to the f***ing dock and leave!" It took Nixon years to accomplish the same thing.
R.E. Lee and George Washington never had an "exit strategy." No one today doubts that the Confederacy lost the war. George Washington hung on -- he never won a battle -- until Rochambeau and de Grasse arrived. If George had had an exit strategy -- i.e. played at war as a game -- he would have exited. He had a very clear objective -- defense of American rights in 75, then Independence in 76. If he had had to have overwhelming force to fight, we would not have independence today. Frederick the Great was another exitless general, and made Prussia great. He thought Washington was a genius of war.
In contrast, Douglas MacArthur had an "exit strategy" in the Philippines -- he personally cut and ran after a stupid, bumbling defense. He never once visited the front on Bataan.
Lincoln said he just wanted a general that would fight. He got one, U.S. Grant who said he'd fight it out on this line (Wilderness) if it took all summer. It took longer, but he never stopped fighting, slipping to his left, fighting until Lee (a much wiser strategist) was all used up.
War is ultimately serious. A great nation cannot pick and choose when it will fight. It must be prepared to take losses (something Americans, I fear, have forgotten how to do) for important causes. It must employ professionals, committed and loyal to their services and nation. When it enters a war it must prevail, regardless of the cost. In the past, with many injustices on our shields, it was hard to die for this country -- I always wondered how the African Americans and Japanese-Americans fought so well for the United States in World War II. Talking to these people, especially those who fought for racial justice during and after the war (Sparky Matsunaga and Dan Inouye are two who taught me much of what I believe) -- they weren't fighting for the America that was, but for the America that could become.
No one made Lincoln start the Civil War. He could have stood aside and let mankind's "last best hope" perish. No one insistent that Clinton start this war. Many think that it is a terrible blunder. I think that America is still the last best hope of freedom, as it has always been, and now we have the people and the weapons to enforce human rights with hope of victory and eventual peace. We don't hate any nation, and only demand that one people not oppress another. I can't take my rifle and put on a green suit any more, but I think this is a war well worth fighting. And as the Marines said in the 50's --- "It's a lousy war. But it's the only one we've got." I'll drink to that. |
