Instead of a "War On Terrorism", why don't we just declare war directly on Al Quiada and then go balls out, burning villages and napalming mountainsides til nothing is left.
A superpower can beat cave dwellers if we put aside the failed, and historically recent, notions of humanitarianism and just do it old school.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
14 comments:
Uh, this is a satirical post, right?
part yes, part no.
The old school got torn down and replaced by a community rec center.
Technically, it would not be a declaration of war, but rather a letter of marque or reprisal. I believe the action against the Barbary Pirates falls into this area.
The trouble with "just going in" is that you're generally going into someone's sovereign territory to do so, and that is....
...an act of war. So diplomatically, it gets a little more dicey.
War is war, and it's never pretty.
i'm saying: do it, or dont.
war needs to be 'all in', or not at all.
and i'm not comfortable with waging wars on abstractions.
Isn't Al-Quaeda an abstraction? It seems it's more of an internationally popular brand-name than an entity.
Tully,
That's a provocative observation. I don't think Al-Qaida (or however you spell it) is an abstraction, but it's a handy way to avoid some of the larger issues involved in our undertaking, which is that there are sovreign nations that harbor the organization.
Abstractions are handy, too. (:
Initially I was going to say your suggestion of method didn't exactly work in Vietnam, but that seemed glaringly obvious, and thus, naive of me. So, which part yes, and which part no?
amanda: it didnt work in vietnam because we didnt do it in vietnam. nam was a limited war.
but, when we did take the war to the north directly, they commies came to table. we didnt back up what we said would happen if the commies reneged, which they did. and is why you and i enjoy pho.
if your neighbor's property housed a thug intent on killing your family, and your nieghbor was not dealing with the issue effectivley, what would you do?
throw rocks at the thug, hoping you dont break any windows?
build a bigger fence, and install new locks?
or snuff him first, by any means necessary?
I think "humanitarian warfare", besides being an oxymoron, is the moral equivalent of shooting to wound. If you can't justify going all in, then you need to find another way to deal with things than force.
thank you brian. thats what i meant to say.
Post a Comment