The War(s)

I respect the soldiers and sailors of the USA. I served in Nam. One thing we found out about war in Nam: our leaders did not know their asses from sideways. We lost the war in Nam, and we took off with our tails between our legs. We were still a superpower, so we came home to lick our wounds and plot revenge. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, a country roughly the size of Rhode Island, we gathered overwhelming force and invaded. The forces of Iraq were in two places: the Imperial Guard was north around Baghdad, and the rest was holed up in Kuwait. We went right through the middle, separating them, cutting off the army in Kuwait, and destroyed the southern forces piecemeal. This was done masterfully, but it was an obvious fight. If the enemy is strong on the flanks and weak in the middle, you go through the middle and turn and envelope them; destroy their cohesion and then pick them off. When it started, I said it would take one week to destroy the Iraq army; it took four days, I believe. This was for Freedom. In 2003, we invaded Iraq after having deliberately deceived ourselves. We came within an ace of getting our butts kicked out of there, because we did not plan for anything other than flowers being placed in our rifles by Ahmed Chalabi. After our experience with asymmetrical warfare in Nam and our familiarity with guerrilla fights elsewhere, it took us until the "9" count to put in Petraeus, a man who was familiar with the style of fight. This war is not yet over, for pacification relied on establishing corps of Sunnis, who resisted the largely Sunni AL Qa'ida organization. However, the majority of the Iraqi voters are Shi'a and so is the government. This government does not trust our Sunni militias. The incompetence of Cheney and Rumsfeld and the Pentagon will be legendary when this history is told. In Afghanistan, we invaded, kicked out the Taliban, and then proceeded to ignore the country for five years, allowing the Taliban to re-establish itself in 80% of the country. It is not totally new military knowledge that one must not give the enemy breathing space. It is beyond the grasp of the Pentagon and our Politicians, however. So we continue to fight for Freedom. The Peace Dividend after the fall of the USSR has disappeared long ago. We shall always fight when the cause for war is continually redefined and extended. We shall always fight as long as the war planners plan for near disasters. Osama bin Laden originally said that he was not the prime director behind 9/11. If true, we once again do not comprehend the forces we face; we once again are deliberately deceiving ourselves. We are dupes, but we are dupes in the cause of Freedom: allowing the architects of continuous warfare to plot the ever new and indecisive wars. War for Freedom is not indecisive. Spartacus' rebellion was not. The Zanj rebellion was not. If you fight for Freedom, you don't settle for the freedom-hash we have seen for the last 40 years. No. It is not Freedom for which we fight.