War and Peace – Ideas, Thoughts, Analysis

1. Whether or not you are for or against a particular war, you share one view – peace. Neither the combatants of war, nor the nations that send their people to war want a war without end. The end of war, by any logical definition, is peace. However, how you arrive at that peace will usually have a significant impact on whether there will be another war and how long that ‘next’ war will last. If the end of war brings long term humiliation and/or injustice to the country in which the war was fought and lost, the war really hasn’t ended permanently. There will be at some future time another war fought unless the humiliation and injustice ends. World War I was a perfect example of this. Germany lost and was made to pay huge reparations over time that humiliated its people and caused them to suffer. It is not surprising that the German people followed the evil tyrant, Adolph Hitler, because he appealed to their sense of pride and restored it. He also started World War II. Germany lost again. This time, the U.S. through the Marshal Plan, rebuilt the economies of both our World War II allies and our combatants, including Germany and Japan. Now both are American allies and the likelihood of war with them is extremely unlikely. Iraq was another example of winning a war but establishing a peace that could not last. After winning the first war, we left the evil dictator Saddam Hussein in charge. The Iraq people suffered immensely and another war ensued. You can believe that there would have been no war if not for the U.S., but the only difference would have been the timing and the combatants. Sooner or later, there would have been another war.

2. Since the Vietnam War, wars have emerged as a two prong fight. One is military; the other is political. After the Tet Offensive of 1968 occurred, two important events followed. The North Vietnam military was handed a stunning, costly, and terrible military defeat. It was so bad, North Vietnam seriously considered suing for peace. The second thing that occurred was that Americans were stunned that the North Vietnamese could militarily penetrate so much of South Vietnam. Many Americans and particularly the news media saw this as a watershed event that meant that eventually, in their belief, the war would end in defeat. Therefore, better to cut and run, then stay the course. North Vietnam was quick to pick up on this. For the first time, they realized that their war goals could be attained “politically” by feeding the image many Americans had of the war as hopeless. Their political ploy worked. America withdrew and the North was then able to conquer South Vietnam.

3. What does this mean for the current Iraq war and future wars?
Unfortunately for America, this political strategy for winning a war that could not be won by military means was observed by our enemies and potential enemies. It was reinforced when Russia fought a war in Afghanistan for 10 years and withdrew without a victory. The overwhelming liberal news media in America, intentionally or not, supports the political strategy of our enemies through its coverage and especially playing up the ‘body counts’. Now, don’t misinterpret what I’m saying here. I am a Vietnam veteran and abhor every American war death and wounded casualty. However, wars cannot be fought without blood shed. The current war in Iraq is being won militarily despite the horrors of the terrorists there. It is being lost politically. Partly, this is because of the lessons about the American politics of the Vietnam war that was observed and learned by the terrorists. If they prolong it long enough, they believe we will leave. Given the coverage of the news media and those Americans that disapprove or protest the war, they may be right. 4000 Americans dead is painful, but what did you expect? It took 5 years for that many to die. We lost that many in one day several times in WW II. We lost 3,000 civilians in one day, when the terrorists flew planes into buildings on 9/11. We did not lose our nerve in WWII. Why are we losing it now? Guaranteed that the cut and run strategy of Vietnam has caused more to die in this war. If we cut and run again, you can guarantee more dead if there is a next American war. Bottom line, if you want less American deaths in a war, we have to prove that we will never cut and run from a war again. Otherwise, we have laid the foundation for all future enemies of America to defeat us over and over again. We simply cannot afford nor tolerate that!

4. Terrorists and Weapons of Mass Destruction
It is the dream of Al Queda to procure and deploy nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction against the United States. In the Cold War, there was an implied but unofficial understanding between the U.S., Russia, and China that any attempt to use nuclear weapons by either side would be met with overwhelming nuclear force in return. In essence, everyone would be destroyed. The policy was labeled Mutually Assure Destruction or MAD. It was literally insane for one nation to attack another with weapons of mass destruction. It worked marvelously well to prevent nuclear war and World War. We need to publicly remind the world, but especially the terrorists that the policy of MAD still exists and will be carried out by the U.S. if so attacked. Furthermore, though we may not be able to prevent such an attack, we would know who perpetrated the attack, the location of the attackers whether government or terrorist, the nations who helped either through their government’s financial, logistical, or weapons aid, or through their people through their ‘charitable’ donations to terrorist groups either directly or through organizations known to funnel such money to these groups. Announce that if the U.S. or its allies are attacked, MAD will apply to them so that all of these groups and nations will be immediately and completely annihilated from the face of the Earth. To these groups and nations, tell them that we feel it is important that they know the consequences of such aggression against us so that they can decide in perfect clarity the future actions they take or don’t take against us. Let them hate us if they are so inclined. More importantly let them understand our ‘response’ policy toward nuclear or biological warfare waged against us or our allies. The whole world would ultimately benefit by this knowledge.