That is essentially the question my wife asked last night as we watched news coverage of the House vote on a measure to withdraw American troops from Iraq by the spring. On the heels of a dismal interim status report on the Iraq progress, the House passed a resolution largely on party lines that seeks removal of the troops to begin in four months and be completed by April. The White House promptly issued a veto threat of the legislation (which will be sustained since the Democrats can't muster enough votes to override the veto).
But I digress a little from the initial question. Why, my wife asked, with all of our troops and equipment in Iraq, are we not flexing the military muscle more. Make no mistake, the U.S. military is capable of turning Iraq into an uninhabitable parking lot in just a few weeks, where nothing larger than a sand flea can live. I have long thought that the road to pacification leads through overwhelming military force applied in an overwhelming fashion. But we don't do that.
Part of the reason of course is that the United States doesn't want to look like a bully, beating up and rendering homeless hundreds of thousands of innocents. But at the same time, our enemy is fighting from within those innocents, hiding among the population and causing them to cower in fear before the terrorists. The terrorists are willing to harm, even kill, the family of people even hinted at helping Americans. The United States is not willing to do the same, and in that regard we are seen as vulnerable.
If the United States adopted a policy of capturing, detaining and even killing the families of terrorists, you would have a much different situation in Iraq and the rest of the world. Ruthlessness met with even more ruthlessness applied in a much more effective manner, will soon end terrorism. The end will come not by ending extremism, but from extremists realizing that their enemy, the United States and the West have the huevos to meet them on their own terms and that the sheer might and capabilities of the West make them a much more formidable opponent than they can ever hope to defeat. All a President has to do is tell his general, the gloves are off, find and kill terrorists and the collateral damage is not of primary concern.
Such a policy is avoided not only on humanitarian grounds, but also on political grounds. Basically, too many of us think that "we just don't do war" and that "war is dirty" and incapable of achieving proper political ends. Weas an nation cannot bear to be seen as a nation unconcerned about the collateral damage of war. It is simply not "nice" or the way a "civilized nation" conducts itself.
War is not something we as a people should aspire to, I will readily admit that it is not the most enviable means of effecting policy, but war is a tool of statecraft and an marvelously effective one at times. But for the political stalemate in this country and the liberal aversion to accepting that the only way to deal with a terrorist willing to die for his cause is to grant him his wish in a manner that keeps America safe (that is killing him in his own home), we may have won this war by doing exactly what my wife asked about, by kicking ass in Iraq.
Alas, we won't do that right now, but we will probably have to do it later and at a much higher price tag than a four thousand soldiers.
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