“And
it’s one, two, three,
What
are we fighting for?”
~
Country Joe McDonald
So now the Obama Administration,
which came into office promising
to “reset” relations with Russia and persuade
Middle Eastern terrorists
to convert their weapons into plowshares, is taking the
United States
into war.
Teed up is Syria, which is being
overrun by numerous anti-state
fighters, and whose condition – that of a failed
country – poses
a threat to U.S. and global security unseen since Afghanistan
was under Taliban rule.
Also inside American crosshairs
is ISIS, the terrorist group
dominating headlines since it brutally killed
American freelance
reporter James Foley and made, until U. S. Navy fighter
planes
started bombing them, significant gains in Iraq.
Not only is ISIS so extreme it
makes Al Qaeda look rational,
it’s also highly ambitious, with one member of
its ranks saying his
organization won’t rest until its flag flies above the
White House.[i]
Seriously, what’s a
peace-leaving, smarter-than-you Democrat,
like Barack Obama, to do?
Easy – borrow from the playbook
of every president since 1980,
maybe even earlier.
Sure, the White House diatribe
sounds good. We’re going to bomb
ISIS wherever we find it. Our
drones will fly over Syrian cities and
long stretches of Iraqi desert. If they lack sufficient capabilities to
kill
terrorists and destroy weapons, no worry. Navy and Air Force jets
will be on call.
Parts of our Navy’s surface fleet
might even get in on the action
by launching cruise missiles. Let’s also hope for numerous
opportunities to keep our elite, special forces on top of their
game with
plenty of dangerous combat missions.
If only this war were the real
thing and not a live-fire exercise.
It’s a few bombs here, a few bombs there, spiced with some
intoxicating,
edge-of-the-seat, missions from Delta Force, the
Seals, maybe even the Green
Berets.
But that’s where it stops.
A plausible case can be made that
U. S. military operations in
World War II’s Pacific Theater could have come to
halt once
Japan’s progress was stopped with two critical battles, Coral
Sea and
Midway.
In Europe – for a few years at
least – the fighting could have
been left to the Army Air Corps as it bombed
factories, towns
and military installations in Nazi-occupied Europe and Germany.
That is, until their advance stopped
and we figured out a time and
a place to work out a peace treaty with Berlin
and, eventually,
Tokyo.
And what would we be dealing with
these many years later? The
fifth
generation of Nazi leadership and the 21st century version
of
Japan’s militarists!
And there’s the problem. President Obama has no more of
strategy
to beat the terrorists, whether they’re ISIS, Al Qaeda or
anyone else – in
other words, to solve the problem – than
President Johnson did for winning the
Vietnam War.
Or than Jimmy Carter did for
releasing our hostages in
Tehran.
Or than President Reagan did for winning in Lebanon,
or than President
George H. W. Bush did for eliminating
Saddam Hussein or than President Clinton
did for outright
defeating Osama bin Laden.
And, frankly, blame can also be
left with President George W.
Bush, whose two wars were left unfinished.
Come to think of it, had
Presidents Truman and Eisenhower
fought for a victory in Korea, today we wouldn’t
be contending
with the third generation of the family running North Korea.
So the question we need to ask –
as posed by 1960s music star
Country Joe McDonald – is what are we fighting
for? A total
elimination of the
terrorists in Syria and Iraq or is Obama
creating a quagmire the next five to
10 generations of Americans
will deal with?
This same kind of thinking came
from Martin Dempsey, the
U.S. military’s top officer.
“They can be contained (but) not
into perpetuity,” he said,
referring to ISIS, during last week’s news
conference.[ii]
Airstrikes can do so much,
Dempsey said. They alone
cannot
stop a determined force, like ISIS.
What we need, the
general inferred, is a plan, something that includes
all out
American force, both a military and diplomatic.
The President and his advisors
need to craft a strategy similar
to what U. S. Army General Winfield Scott proposed
at the
outbreak of the Civil War.
Call it Operation Anaconda, just
like the general called his plan.
It would surround Syria and Iraq
and, through airstrikes, special
operations and conventional infantry forces,
destroy ISIS and
every other terrorist movement in those two countries, maybe
even Bashar al-Assad’s government.
In other words, we need to fight
a real war with one objective
– total victory.
Then, of course, we’ll need
something along the lines of a
Marshall Plan to win the peace.
If there’s anything President
Obama should know, it’s
this: Failure
to eliminate ISIS and restructure Syria and
Iraq will create more costly
problems in the future, possibly
in American and allied lives.
Did you really think Obama was
brighter than the rest?
Don’t
give a damn,
My
next stop is Islam!”
~ with apologies to
Country Joe
