Hood Today

With the promised addition of 30,000 more troops by President Obama, and a strategy shift that indicates that America will be pulling out in 18 months, the war in Afghanistan is pretty much a losing cause. Don't misunderstand me, I support the military, after all I am an honorably discharged veteran of the U.S. Army. However, I think the current Commander in Chief does not understand the whole premise of war.

Like it or not the whole premise of war is to destroy the enemy's forces, equipment and supplies with the goal of forcing surrender. Troop training, infrastructure building and government forming are all peace time activities. You do not do these things in a war zone. The only true way to win in Afghanistan, Iraq, or any other theater of war is to annihilate the enemy forces, equipment, and supplies with the goal of forcing surrender.

War is an activity of attrition, perpetrated on an enemy until that enemy lays down their weapons and surrenders to the victorious side. Our weapons are design to inflict irrevocable damage upon the enemy's weapons. Out troops are trained to render the enemy's troops unfit for service. A quote attributed to General George Patton Jr. states, "No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."

That being said, the current enemy does not have a country to die for. The current enemy has only his belief in an ideal. Regardless of the strategy that the current President chooses, unless he chooses to fight the war the way that war was meant to be fought, American forces and the American people will face some difficult times.

Where the president's strategy goes wrong is in the combination of a military and civilian effort. Soldiers fight wars. Civilians rebuild infrastructure. The allied forces did not try to rebuild Germany in the middle of fighting the Nazis'. Peace time diplomacy and wartime activities have never co-existed. Certainly there is a level of diplomacy that happens in war, but it does not seek to bow out gracefully. It demands surrender from the enemy, all the while annihilating the enemy forces, equipment, and supplies.

As I stated in the opening of this article, like it or not, the only way to defeat the present enemy is through attrition, and for those who may disagree, think about this… America has not even begun to realize the staggering effects of a world where jihad and sharia law rule. In a religious context just read Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21 and 1 Thessalonians 5 and 2 Thessalonians 1 & 2.

This current war that America finds herself in presents unique challenges that have never been seen in modern warfare. First, the enemy America faces does not have a boarder. Unlike the traditional sovereign nation against sovereign nation style of warfare, radical Islam operates free from the constraints of a sovereign nation. Radical Islam is a loose network; a hodge-podge of lone wolves, small groups, and organized militias. This means that the enemy is not only around the world but it is also within America herself.

Second, for the better part of ten years America supplied the Afghan government against the Soviet Union. Beginning on December 24, 1979 until the final troop withdrawal on May 15, 1988… This mentality of the enemy of my enemy is my friend was taken to a whole new level. There is history here that America would do well to adhere to. The Soviet Union fell, in part, because it was sucked into a conflict that resulted in an economic quagmire of fighting an enemy without boarders.

Third, the enemy has no limit to the type of war that it wages. Since the premise of war is to inflict irrevocable damage upon the enemy's weapons, then America finds itself in a very desperate situation. Radical Islam despises the concept of life, liberty, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness. It, in turn, uses these very concepts as a weapon against America. If America is to inflict irrevocable damage upon the enemy's weapons and those weapons are the very freedoms that America enjoys then the logical outcome is that America must inflict irrevocable damage unto its own freedoms.

Unfortunately it appears that this current administration is all too willing to do just that; destroy the weapons that the enemy is using to wage warfare on the United States; specifically our freedoms, our liberties, and our pursuits of happiness. The social engineering that has been undertaken by certain elements of our society appears to harbor the same distain for the way that America has been built that her enemies do.

I would love to see our world emerge as a safer place for all people. However, reality is that two people living in the same house will often view the world differently. Therefore to have a utopian desire of peace is not at all practical. Sovereignty is the closest answer to a world of threats and dangers. Sometimes wars have to be fought even when the enemy hides amongst non-combatants.

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