|
The War on Terror is the most serious conflict that the US has been involved in since World War II.
As we all saw on September 11, 2001, terrorists can inflict tremendous damage to our fellow citizens, our property, our economy,
our financial systems and our way of life. Watching the World Trade Center complex collapse into a pile of dust
on the streets of New York was unbelievable. This is a place where I had been many times. People that worked with
me earlier in my career worked in the World Trade 2 building at the time of the attack. I had
stayed at the World Trade Center hotel that collapsed. My family had visited the World Trade Center observation
deck the year prior to 9/11. One of the men that was killed in the Pentagon attack was the father of student at
my son's high school.
Since 9/11 we have seen other terrorist attacks in Bali, Madrid, London and other locations
around the world. We have seen people killed and injured, property destroyed and lives changed forever. Fortunately,
we have not had another successful terrorist attack in the US as of this date. But I think we all would agree that it
is not a matter of if there will be another attack it is simply the question of when.
Please note that I do not
consider the War in Iraq to be an integral part of the War on Terror. When the Bush administration
launched the war in the Spring of 2003 I was deeply concerned about the logic of a massive ground attack and the responsibilities
that action put on the US. The primary justification for the ground war in Iraq was the presence and potential threat
of weapons of mass destruction which were in fact not present. Despite three years of Republican propaganda attempting
to change its initial justification for the war, the facts are the facts. I do not blame the Congress for this
war. The Bush administration must be held fully accountable.
One can debate how and why the decision
was made to send a massive military force into Iraq. At this point the only material issue is how does the US get its
military out of Iraq to stop the growing number of US military causalities, the deaths of innocent Iraqi civilians
and the impact of the war on the US treasury. My 18 year old nephew is in the Marine Corps and is in training for
deployment to Iraq in 2007. We don't need to send him or any other young American men and women to fight
a war for which there is no substantial justification. Iraqis must step forward and defend the new nation that has been
given to them.
The Iraq Study Group has now given the Bush administration its final report. This group of
outstanding American leaders, including members from both political parties, has a provided a great service to their country.
They have created a "purple" plan to deal with Iraq. We can only hope that the Bush administration will listen
to the Iraq study group.
As I continue to read news reports and watch television clips about the activity in Iraq,
I conclude that we are not fighting a war now. The War in Iraq ended when we took control of Baghdad in the spring of
2003 or when Saddam Hussein was captured. Since that time the US has used its army to execute what I would call a massive
police action. I realize many people would scoff at my definition due to the scale of our military activity in Iraq.
However, if the current military activity was truly a war against the nation of Iraq; we would literally destroy Iraq in our
effort to kill every enemy soldier carrying any type of weapon and not care about how many people we killed or injured or
how badly the economy was destroyed. We would literally blow cities completely apart in our effort to kill the bad guys
and not care about anything other than killing every last person that is attacking our troops.
Today, our large army is simply a massive set of targets for the various insurgent groups to shoot at on a day-to-day
basis. Since we don’t want to destroy the nation of Iraq or annex it as part of our nation, we need to get our
forces out of Iraq and leave the various Iraqi factions to fight it out among themselves. These people have killed each
other over religion for centuries. We can’t stop them from continuing to kill each other now. It is unfortunate
situation, but true. Innocent people in Iraq will die but why should we allow any more US citizens to be killed and
continue to waste our nations wealth. There is no end result of this massive police action that benefits our nation.
We need to end the US conflict in Iraq and work to create a political system in Iraq that is workable and minimizes any further
damage to the Iraq and its citizens. The War on Terror is a war that all free people must
win against the godless and lawless purveyors of terror. The rules of historical capture-the-flag warfare do not apply.
The Geneva convention and general rules of warfare do not apply. Our enemy doesn't recognize any form of law
or decent behavior that we would recognize. Our enemy is not a national government. It is a gang of rogues
that desire to establish their will on others.
This war is about protection of critical US infrastructure
assets, proper control of our borders, surveillance of individuals that appear to present an elevated risk level and
going anywhere in the world to destroy those that would plot or organize terrorists acts against us or our allies.
Much of the military equipment that has been purchased over the past 20 years is useless or minimally beneficial
in fighting the War on Terror. The War on Terror is all about special operations, intelligence and counterintelligence,
surveillance, communications and many new forms of technology needed to separate the good guys from the bad guys and good
things from bad things. We must realign our defense expenditures and efforts and make sure we are making the right
investments for the War on Terror.
We cannot afford to lose the War on Terror. We must be prepared to fight
it with all the strength we can muster as a nation. But it is a war that must be fought with thoughtful intelligence.
Hopefully, our national political leadership will find the wisdom to win this war.
Copyright 2006/2007
by TPM
|
