War

“The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.”

-General George S. Patton

The purpose of the United States Military is to protect her citizens and to defend her borders.

“In a time when the lion lies down next to the lamb, it is very important that America remains the lion.”

- Senator Phil Graham

A people who do not defend her children are doomed. It is naive to think that countries will ever live peaceably together. There is always someone who wants what you have and will kill to get it.

“Speak softly, but carry a big stick.”

- President Teddy Roosevelt

The best way to protect America is to prevent someone from attacking her. The best way prevent attack is to remain the most destructive military on the planet.

A classic example of this was the Clinton’s administration response to a decade of Al Qaeda terrorism. Osama Bin Laden publicly stated that Clinton’s tepid reaction to Mogadishu, the bombing of our embassies and troops in the Khobar towers, and the attack on the USS Cole emboldened him to strike on 911. Our feeble foreign policy made him think that America was “weak and cowardly” (his words).

“America loves a winner and will not tolerate a loser.”

- General George S. Patton

If we are forced to wage war, we should win it aggressively and decisively. The Powell Doctrine is the only form of warfare the American people will tolerate. Have a clearly defined objective and exit strategy before you even start. Go in with everything you’ve got. Blow up the bad guys and bring our boys and girls back home.

Whenever America has been forced into armed conflict, we fight quickly and efficiently - and we give the conquered nation back to the people that we conquered. That fact is lost on weak-kneed liberals who constantly pine about the “sins” of our fathers. Ask Mexico, Cuba, the Philippines, Germany, Italy, France, Japan, Korea, Grenada, and Panama who rules their nations. They do.

America is unique in this respect. When other nations wage wars, they are historically about wealth and territory - the winner nearly always seizes land from the loser.

America has never fought a war that wasn’t about liberty – and the people we liberated were often not even our own. No other nation can claim such a selfless foreign policy.

“War is Hell.”

-General Tecumseh Sherman

I’m from the South and I’m proud of the South – but I’ll admit that Sherman did the South a favor on his famous “March to the Sea.” By making the war intolerable, he saved countless lives by forcing the South to surrender quickly.

Ditto the atomic bomb. Pacifists love to complain about the horrible lose of life, but people of the day – both Japanese and American – were eternally grateful that the war was finally over. There’s no question that millions more would have died if we hadn’t dropped the bomb.

The Germans and the Japanese were totally defeated after WWII. Look at them now – they’re among our most loyal allies.

Compare that to the lesson of the First Persian Gulf War. Though we expelled the Republican Guard from Kuwait, we did not destroy them as we should have. The liberals who cried for Bush #41 to stop the coalition from wiping out Saddam Hussein’s military sowed the seeds for the Second Persian Gulf War. If the Republican Guard and all their tanks had been destroyed back in 1991, Saddam wouldn’t have dreamed of fighting us in 2003. Our “mercy” cost us billions of dollars and thousands of American lives.

Likewise, the surgical precision of the Second Gulf War actually prolonged the later resistance. The Iraqi’s never felt like they were defeated, and too many bad guys lived to fight another day. Better to defeat the enemy on a field of battle than to suffer years of terroristic agony.

"What we still don't understand is why you Americans stopped the bombing of Hanoi. You had us on the ropes. If you had pressed us a little harder, just for another day or two, we were ready to surrender. It was the same at the battle of Tet. You defeated us. We knew it. We thought you knew it. But we were elated to notice that your media was definitely helping us. They were causing more disruption in America than we could in the battlefield. We were ready to surrender. You had won."

- General Giap, North Vietnamese Army

Did you know we never lost a battle in Vietnam? Not one. The Tet Offensive and the Mekong Delta? The media turned these American victories into public relations disasters. America lost the war not in the jungle, but in the hearts and minds of the American people. Johnson (and Nixon until Operation Linebacker) refused to use our full military might, paying more attention to protestors on Pennsylvania Avenue than the enemy in Hanoi.

“Anyone who has looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war.”

- Otto von Bismarck, the “Iron Chancellor”

Please don’t misunderstand me – war is terrible. We should only wage them when we have no other choice. As a veteran of five different wars I can tell you – no one understands the horror of war more than a soldier.

In his brilliant book, Diplomacy, Henry Kissinger points out the reckless peril of war. Nations can huff and puff all they like, but once you engage troops in combat you are “rolling the dice” with the future of your country. Unexpected things happen in war – most of them bad. It is infinitely better to prepare for war - bluster about war - do anything but start a war. Once you do, you become nothing more than a high-stakes gambler, with the lives of your citizens as poker chips.

But when war is forced upon us, we must decisively fight and win that war with all our military might. Why? Two reasons:

1. To protect Americas men, women and children. Any nation that refuses to protect her own is pathetic – and doomed.

2. To avoid future wars by demonstrating our ferocious retribution.