14/12: The Nature of War
Category: America and the World
Posted by: an okie gardener
A quote from the opening of Sea of Thunder: Four Commanders and the Last Great Naval Campaign, 1941-45 by Evan Thomas:
In 1943, American sailors and soldiers entering the harbor at Tulagi, the front-line U.S. Navy base in the South Pacific, passed a billboard telling them to
The billboard was signed by Adm. William F. Halsey, Jr., their commander.
Whatever the political goal of war, the form of war always is the same: kill the enemy. Inflicting death is the harsh essence of the conduct of war. Somehow between 1943 and today the American public seems to have forgotten this elemental truth. Wars cannot be clean and neat. They of necessity will be bloody, messy, and painful.
When we went into Iraq, war was the reality we chose. We should not be surprised. No amount of precision munitions will change the basic reality: people will die. Ours and theirs. We want to kill many, many more of theirs, and must to win. Any attempt to lay down Rules of Engagement based on legal conventions will endanger our troops and victory itself. We will, as a nation, accept the risk of certain basic conventions--no execution of those who actively surrender or who are wounded beyond ability to fight--but cannot please "world opinion," whatever that means, by accepting more restrictive conventions. War is what it is. See the earlier post on Rules of Engagement in Iraq.
In 1943, American sailors and soldiers entering the harbor at Tulagi, the front-line U.S. Navy base in the South Pacific, passed a billboard telling them to
Kill Japs, Kill Japs, Kill more Japs!
The billboard was signed by Adm. William F. Halsey, Jr., their commander.
Whatever the political goal of war, the form of war always is the same: kill the enemy. Inflicting death is the harsh essence of the conduct of war. Somehow between 1943 and today the American public seems to have forgotten this elemental truth. Wars cannot be clean and neat. They of necessity will be bloody, messy, and painful.
When we went into Iraq, war was the reality we chose. We should not be surprised. No amount of precision munitions will change the basic reality: people will die. Ours and theirs. We want to kill many, many more of theirs, and must to win. Any attempt to lay down Rules of Engagement based on legal conventions will endanger our troops and victory itself. We will, as a nation, accept the risk of certain basic conventions--no execution of those who actively surrender or who are wounded beyond ability to fight--but cannot please "world opinion," whatever that means, by accepting more restrictive conventions. War is what it is. See the earlier post on Rules of Engagement in Iraq.
A Waco Farmer wrote:
However, on at least two points, I have faulted him from the very beginning:
1. He did not issue a national call to service.
2. He did not articulate (because I think he himself did not really understand) what sacrifices a war would entail. We entered into Iraq completely unprepared psychologically for this extended engagement.