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That's a great tag line, isn't it?
No more forever wars.
What's your basis for a war ending?
Not having to do it again in about a generation? The Great War World War One fails that.
Bringing the troops home? World War Two fails that. The Cold War fails that. Korea fails that.
Vietnam, widely regarded as a loss succeeds at both of those metrics. The troops are home and we haven't felt the need to go back...
The enemy doesn't want to go again is prolly the best indicator of winning.
Despite the agitation of groups like the American Indian Movement, The Indian Wars are won.
WW2 is really a win, despite the troops still being there because we started The Cold War almost the same day that Doenitz signed the surrender instrument.
I still feel like we won The Cold War too. Sun Tzu would applaud how the win was obtained too!
To play World Police, we need forward bases and we already had them in place in Europe and Asia.
But the war on Terra Tara Terror... We're not attacking the root causes, just responding to their attacks. In essence, a purely defensive war. Ask the Confederacy how a defensive war works out. Or France.
Curtis LeMay understood.
Sometimes you have to fight and if you're going to fight, fight to fucking win!
That will mean killing people.
That will mean destroying things.
But you need to take the war to the bad guys and defeat them on their home turf. You have to eliminate that home turf, even if it's in a "neutral" nation. Pakistan should have been a lot more afraid of Bin Laden getting caught is all I'm going to say about safe haven nations like that. Heck, I still think we owe them for that.
While blowing up Iran's labs is great, it's not going to end the conflict.
We're going to be blowing up their labs again unless they do a change in leadership.
Changing that leadership is not something the US has EVER been good at. Just look at our attempts in banana republics. South America has every right to resent our attempts!
I endorse an approach that leads to Iran being our friend. It's been clear since 1979 what is in the way.
By the way, speaking of 1979 and nations providing safe haven for the problem makers. France was instrumental in allowing Khomeini to take power in Iran.
I always had the feeling that France was instrumental in installing Khomeini for two reasons. The first is they hoped to sell weapons and technology (and get access to US technology sold to the Shah) to Neuveux Iran. The second, of course, was getting said Khomeini and his followers out of France.
ReplyDeleteAs to Iran's nuke program, it's been hit several times previously, just less explosively. Stuxit computer virus, someone whacking their scientists, bad equipment sold to them, bad installation of critical equipment that basically thrashed said equipment.
Of course, the real question is why do so many people not believe Iran when it says that it will use nukes against us and Israel as soon as they have them?