America's Reluctant Warrior

Being slow to anger is an admirable characteristic that the United States has consistently demonstrated since Woodrow Wilson was so hesitant to enter the First World War. Once roused though the angry giant of America demonstrated a ferocity and commitment unprecedented in the history of nations and people at war until Harry Truman fought for stasis rather than victory in the Korean Conflict and LBJ refused to do all that was necessary to win in Vietnam leaving Nixon with peace with honor and "Vietnamization" with the public already too polarized to seek a clear win. So it may be a Democrat trait since the end of World War II not to fully invest in the notion of victory because that of course means the very politically incorrect initiation of total war. Barack Hussein Obama is aptly illustrating lack of will in Afghanistan where he landed on a previously secret mission to bolster troop morale but did not even bother to meet his allied Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai while on the ground there. Casualty figures in that conflict have skyrocketed for American forces there and it was announced that more US troops have died there in 2010 than in the entire time the last President Bush had conducted the fighting there from 2001 through 2008. This tragedy is so lamentable because it was so easily avoidable. It should have been easily predictable that US forces would sustain huge losses when mission tempo was increased under the most restrictive rules of engagement Americans have ever been forced to fight under (I in fact said it was bound to happen on this Despot forum). Placing large numbers of troops in harm's way and then binding their hands guarantees losses. The kind of restraint Obama has forced on our combat forces is not laudable. Seventeen thousand more Americans being sent over there without easing the rules of engagement are just that much more cannon fodder (or more literally IED-fodder). I have a few suggestions to win in Afghanistan that will not be implement by President Obama because victory is not his declared objective- withdrawal is with "Afghanization" replacing "Vietnamization" as the Pentagon buzzword. To win, America has to be ruthless. If someone is caught placing or detonating a charge, he should not be read his rights and arrested, he should be seen as an illegal combatant operating out of mufti and summarily executed. If a US soldier or Marine is killed, the area should be demolished after a seventy-two hour notice to evacuate has been issued. If a suicide bomber strikes, his family home should be bulldozed and his loved ones dispossessed. In areas of concentrated or heavy resistance, artillery and air power should be brought in and overwhelming force must be used. If these tactics are employed, Afghanistan is still winnable for America, and not using them amounts to negligent homicide against our own forces.