War on What?

Ray St. Louis, a columnist for the High Springs Herald newspaper wrote an article pertaining to the present war on terrorism, some of which I agree with completely and others not so much. For this example, I will discuss one issue he made with his opening paragraph,

”Now that Donald Rumsfeld has been dispatched, perhaps some real progress can be made in the war on terror. Here’s the first thing that should happen: stop calling it a war.”

Mr. St. Louis sums up his statement by saying, “What the country needs is an intelligent anti-terrorism policy. Or call it a strategy. Calling it a war creates a mindset that too easily leads to disastrous military actions such as Iraq.”

I do not agree with the Rumsfeld comment, but, from a military perspective, the rest makes a bit of sense. Throughout the course of history nations have went to war for a myriad of reasons, food, water, women, the king just plain hated the very existence of the other nation or in the case of the Trojan war and the conquest of Alexander, because it was there. Whatever war was going on at any specific time all had one thing in common, it was a war against another nation.

Granted, on 9/11 we were attacked with what is now termed weapons of mass destruction, yes, there are those who argue this particular case in point to this very day. There is still the fringe lunatic crowd stating we attacked ourselves and it was controlled implosions, we will just sweep these idiots under the rug, never mind the length of time it would take to rig buildings of that size to implode, all the while not one person being suspicious. Oh, that is right, they were all in on it, and stupid people just amaze me.

The inherent truth to the fact of weapons still remains, an aircraft or any other type of vehicle when used in the right situation is a weapon of mass destruction, just as a truck of fertilizer and the proper ignition, anything that kills and destroys as they did is what it appears to be.

In any case, we were attacked, not by a nation, but to be specific, a way of life, a fringe lunatic order of a specific religion that to this day our country or any other refuses to state for the fear of our reprisals being called a crusade. Well folks, I do not believe for one moment that this is a crusade, the Pope did not order this war, the Vatican does not want it, but the Muslims sure love to banter that word around the water cooler. I guess it sure beats them saying, “Oh well, we deserved it, bin Laden really screwed the pooch with this one”, as if that would happen.

I am totally digressing, as is usual with me, allow me to continue, we retaliated by sending troops against the Taliban in Afghanistan, why, well, there was nobody else hiding bin Laden at the time and some say they still are. This was not a war against a nation; Afghanistan has been so beat to hell and back over the years that they no longer qualify as a plot of land, let alone a nation.

Then we sent out troops into the night against Iraq, yes that is still being argued and only history will be the judge of this. I am sure twenty-five years from now our children will be watching it on the Military Channel and discussing it in schools, but for now, we are there and we are fighting. However, wait; is this a war against Iraq? No, we are only battling insurgents, remnants of Saddam’s military and elite death squads, not Iraq. In fact, we go out of our way to win their hearts and minds, of course, this is while they hide, cover up and protect their people trying till kill our men and women, but still just ask anyone, we love the Iraqi people, we want to cloth, feed, school and bring them all into our democratic fold. What a total crock of bovine excrement and this is where I tend to go off.

If we were at war then by God we need to go to war to win, not care about secondary damages, casualties and hearts and minds, these people would stab us in the back if we turned wrong and then take our heads in true Muslim fashion.

We are not a war against any nation, we are at war against those who are bent on destroying us, the United States of America and it is about time we did this with as much extreme prejudice as possible. This includes any nation harboring terrorist, insurgents or people wishing to take down our way of life.

We will be attacked again, this will happen and everyone except the bleeding hearts in Washington who were just elected know this to be a fact. This will occur and when it does, we can only hope and pray that it is not as bad as some analysts are predicting. When this day comes may be the day that our country stands together as one and screams we will no longer turn our cheek, we will no longer be the paper tiger and we are tired of being the nice person. Perhaps this will be the turning point and we will attack terrorism on every front and on any nation, for that is what this war is about, terrorism, not a country, but individuals who are determined to take down our country.

When this day comes these merchants of death will hide in the woodwork and scream crusade and the world will hate us once more. Perhaps we will have reached a point that we no longer care, we can only hope.