Here are some more words of wisdom from ‘Lee’, a former student of mine, who is a Houston police SWAT team sergeant and who recently served a tour of duty with the Army in Iraq.
To All:
As for Mr. Obama’s plan for Afghanistan, I saw a blog earlier today that said ‘no one who has ever won a war has ever announced in advance when they plan to stop fighting.’
Will someone please tell me why we still have troops in Germany, Japan, Korea, and the Balkans? Aren’t we way past 18 months in all of those venues? If Afghanistan is, as Mr. Obama so eloquently put it “the epicenter of radical terrorism,” why wouldn’t we have an open-ended commitment to ensure that once secured, it remains that way?
And let me be very clear on my statement regarding the situation in Iraq. The war is not won there. The country has not been stabilized, the Iraqis are not ready nor committed to their own security or even the rule of law. We are not their friends and though many pretend to be ours, they are not. But politicians are running the fight there and it has become one-sided – the insurgents against us and we can’t fight back. It is a sad day when a soldier is maimed or killed to make sure there are fresh Ding Dongs in the PX.
War is the ugliest of human endeavors. It should, without exception, be the absolute final course of action. By its very nature it is a thing to be sorely dreaded. We should never forget though, that it has never solved anything - except tyranny, slavery, Nazism, and genocide. And, because of that, when engaged in, it should be done, not half-heartedly or with temerity, but with nothing but victory as its goal.
Lee
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