Let's Fight 'Em Where We Find 'Em

The President has vetoed the original war funding bill. Tomorrow he's inviting Congressional leaders of both parties for a Pow-Wow. I'm pretty sure the eventual outcome will be a proper funding of our troops. This is all just politics, and I can't really fault the Democrats for their efforts. It's how the game is played.

More importantly, we must decide if we are even going to pursue our enemy outside our borders. That's the first order of business. If we decide to act according to the Bush Doctrine, we will find 'em, fix 'em and destroy them. Ancient war fighting from Sun Tzu to Clausewitz and all that. The only other option is to hole-up on our side of the world and hope they leave us alone. But, when one considers bin Laden's words with regard to the US, that does not seem to be the proper strategy.

Our enemy's leader, bin Laden, issued at least two fatwas against our nation. The first in 1996 and the second in 1998. He called for Muslims to kill American military and civilian personnel until we "withdraw support for Israel and withdraw military forces from Islamic countries." (Wikipedia, Osama bin Laden) Does anyone else see any significance in the dates of the fatwas and the first of his two reasons for the proclamations?

Besides his fatwas, there was the first WTC attack, the attacks on our two African Embassies and then there is the USS Cole. None of these events had anything to do with Iraq. And now Iraq is infested by al-Qaeda. As bin Laden's boys are in Iraq in big numbers, aren't we fighting the proper enemy, regardless of venue?

For the purposes of this discussion, I will stipulate that bin Laden had little to do with Iraq. Saddam was a secularist, and Iraq and al-Qaeda were tangentially related at most. In no way would I argue that this low-level involvement in Iraq would be sufficient reason to oust Saddam. Further, while I firmly believe there were WMD there before the invasion, that they have not been found does not in any way change my feelings about the invasion. Remember, like it or not, all the intelligence agencies in the whole world said he had WMD, so no calling anyone a liar - mistaken if you must be disparaging, but not a liar.

Now we are faced with the reality that bin Laden has declared war on the US, he attacked us at least four times before we responded in any meaningful way, and now we have found and fixed many of his fighters, we are trying to destroy them. That is how war is conducted. Could someone take up a collection to buy a copy of Sun Tzu and copy of Clausewitz for each member of the Congress, especially for the Democrats?

As for secondary reasons that are sufficient to go after bin Laden and al-Qaeda, let's look at al-Qaeda's main goals They are very special. al-Qaeda has four major goals: the elimination of foreign influence in the Islamic world; eradication of infidels; elimination of Israel; and the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate.

The elimination of foreign influence is understandable - not possible, but at least almost sane. The next three are a bit problematic. As to the elimination of Israel and the eradication of infidels, haven't we heard this before? Didn't Hitler want to eradicate Jews, eliminate Jews? Didn't our post WWII UN Charter come into being specifically to prevent anymore Hitleresque thought and implementation? Doesn't the Left continually lobby in favor of the UN? Do these facts make any sense when taken together in context? They don't to me.

And that Caliphate business? Is there anyone, other than Islamic radicals and various other revolutionaries that think this is a good idea? And guess where they want to center the supposed caliphate? Anyone? That's right! Babylon a/k/a Iraq. So, based on that alone, doesn't it make sense that al-Qaeda is there fighting now?

Do the words of bin Laden and the Iranian nutjob, that the present struggle is indeed World War 3, carry any weight at all? I don't know about you, but when someone declares himself my enemy, threatens to eliminate me and my friends, has repeatedly attacked me, and now possesses the means to carry through on his threats to destroy me, I sorta feel like killing the bastard. What about you?

So, here we are in Iraq. Our sworn enemy is there, he is fighting us and we are whipping him, at least in military terms. I know in terms of Liberal Politics we're losing, but politics ain't war fighting. In fact, the two major occasions when wars were run by politicians, popular opinion and polls, we pulled out before we had stomped the muthas into the ground like the dog meat they are.

Remember Korea? The North attacked the South. We pushed them all the way back to China in less than six months, but a million screaming Chinese troops crossed the Yalu River and we fought them to a stalemate, ending the war within feet of its starting point. That was a political solution. If our politicians would have allowed us, we coulda whipped the Chinese too, but no, we wouldn't want to upset anyone. No matter that the Chinese attacked us. Let's be careful not to look bad in the UN.

Then there was Vietnam. Again with the 3 P's. Politicians, Popular opinion and Polls. Vietnam was run from the basement of the White House. Rules, rules, rules. And then we quit. You know how Vietnam became VIETNAM!!!!! By quitting. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. But I'm not going to argue that point with anyone. After all, most of you will repeat what you've heard and support it with feelings. I have hundreds of books on Vietnam, so don't pick a fight with me about it, at least not with respect to this article. Want to go 15 rounds on the hows and whys of Vietnam? Write an article and invite me to debate you.

My point in the last two paragraphs is simple. Let the Goddam generals fight this and we win. End of discussion. If politicians keep trying to play general, we're gonna pack up and quit again. What the Hell happened to JFK's pronouncement, a Democrat mind you, to fight any foe anywhere for the freedom of all peoples? Even more important, what the Hell has happened to the courage of our convictions?

The enemy who declared war on us is in Iraq. Why he's there and how he got there are of no matter now. He's there, and so are we. Kill the Bastards!