The Proper Way To Fight War....

[AmericaFyeah92]

Ron Paul has said (i think, could be wrong) that he endorses the Christian "just war" theory: a proportianate response to attack with as little bloodshed as possible. I disagree however. I believe that if we commit ourselves to a constitutional war, we should use all the force required to ANNIHILATE the enemy totally. We shouldn't go out of our way to prevent civilian casualties. Otherwise, we'll get another halfassed war that will come back to bite us.

I believe that if we had declared war and thoroughly massacred Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and any afghans who opposed us after 9/11, and then changed our failed foreign policies, we would have a credible deterrent for future terror attacks. Instead, we halfassed it and bin Laden is still alive, training camps are going in Pakistan, we just had our deadliest Afghan suicide bombing,etc. The jihadists know that they can attack us and survive. I believe this is all a result of a "just war" mindset (and our middle east policies, of course).

Thoughts? Shouls we pursue a ruthless WW2 mindset, or keep the Just War theory?

 

[ChickenHawk]

I pretty much agree with that. The last time we actually won a war was when we went totally ape $^%# and bombed the livin' crap outta everything that moved sending entire cities back to the stone age. War is hell and when you try to make it something else you are bound to fail.

 

[Mini-Me]

I disagree...I prefer this idea:

If a terrorist group attacks us: Letters of Marque and Reprisal.
If your country attacks us or harbors a terrorist group that attacks us, we'll declare war on you, bomb the hell out of your government buildings and relentlessly assassinate all of your political and military leaders, and we'll leave it up to your people to rebuild. If you mess with us again, we'll continue to do the same thing, over and over...until you finally get the message and put someone into power who's smart enough not to make the same mistake.

However:

• NO preemptive war
• NO war without a declaration
• NO nation building
• And if we can by any means avoid it, NO sending our 18-year-old kids to fight, kill, and die while they send their 18-year-old kids to do the same. Instead, the people who die should be the leaders who got them into the mess in the first place. Sometimes this might not be possible - a big land battle may be necessary sometimes in order to get to the real targets - however, I think such a paradigm shift would really make war a lot less bloody and a lot less likely to happen. The focus should be on spies, "sleeper cells" of hitmen, and special forces.

Obviously this goes hand-in-hand with a better foreign policy, too...we need to end entangling alliances and stop meddling around in the internal affairs of other countries (by funding one or both sides of a war, messing around with our CIA, etc.). Then, it'll be quite simple to have a policy of, "Don't start shit, and there won't be any." Right now, though, it seems like our policy is more like, "Don't start shit, and if we don't like you, we'll still find a way to make it look like you did."

I really think if we made it our consistent number one priority to always target political and military leaders for violent removal instead of fighting a huge land battle (and if other countries followed such a lead), the leaders of all countries would begin to be more...careful. It's one thing when they're sending hordes of young people to die for their country, but when the rich old men in charge have their own lives on the line...

 

[RonPaulalways]

This is how I see it:

the US should either be an empire, and extort the nations it occupies and surrounds. If it chooses empire it should at least be honest about its imperial designs, and have some kind of policy of improving and "Americanizing" the world like the way the British empire did.

or

the US should stop wasting billions stationing troops around the world.

 

[Cjays]

..we should use all the force required to ANNIHILATE the enemy totally. We shouldn't go out of our way to prevent civilian casualties. Otherwise, we'll get another halfassed war that will come back to bite us.

I agree. In fact, I'd like to see a satellite that that disintegrate targets on the surface. We demonstrate it to the world by with an island or something that nobody's using. When there's a true threat, we declare war end end it within 24 hours.

 

[AmericaFyeah92]

I'm glad to see we're all on the same page. LOL, and the other candidates thought we were peaceniks.

But someone above said it correctly: war IS hell, and if we try to make it nice it comes back to bite us.

 

[FreeTraveler]

I really think if we made it our consistent number one priority to always target political and military leaders for violent removal instead of fighting a huge land battle (and if other countries followed such a lead), the leaders of all countries would begin to be more...careful. It's one thing when they're sending hordes of young people to die for their country, but when the rich old men in charge have their own lives on the line...

When you really analyze who always dies in a war, and who always lives, "us vs. them" takes on new meaning. If ALL soldiers, EVERYWHERE said "I will not kill for you, do it yourself!" war would be impossible!

If Bush has problems with Mussharaf or Putin, hand him a knife and give him a pat on the back. Same for all the congresscritters and pundits who think people killing each other for any reason is a good idea.

 

[jason43]

In a war with another nation, total war (ala Sherman) is the only way to win. In a war with a mafia like organization (al Queda) targeted strikes, freezing assets, and assasinations are the only way to actually win. Occupation just adds to their recruitment.

 

[Hancock1776]

Ron Paul has said (i think, could be wrong) that he endorses the Christian "just war" theory: a proportianate response to attack with as little bloodshed as possible. I disagree however. I believe that if we commit ourselves to a constitutional war, we should use all the force required to ANNIHILATE the enemy totally. We shouldn't go out of our way to prevent civilian casualties. Otherwise, we'll get another halfassed war that will come back to bite us.

I believe that if we had declared war and thoroughly massacred Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and any afghans who opposed us after 9/11, and then changed our failed foreign policies, we would have a credible deterrent for future terror attacks. Instead, we halfassed it and bin Laden is still alive, training camps are going in Pakistan, we just had our deadliest Afghan suicide bombing,etc. The jihadists know that they can attack us and survive. I believe this is all a result of a "just war" mindset (and our middle east policies, of course).

Thoughts? Shouls we pursue a ruthless WW2 mindset, or keep the Just War theory?

That's not even wrong. WW2 was operated on a Just War ideology.

The tactic you're talking about, though, is completely called for. The US military was almost deliberate in permitting bin Laden to escape. This nancing about in other countries as if we stabilize them has to end. We know who our enemies are. The only military strategy that makes sense in the context of terrorism is to not just subdue the enemy or defeat the enemy, but to grind the enemy into dust until the enemy no longer exists. Until an enemy presents himself the USA should mind its own business. At the moment when an enemy decides to kick our liberty-loving little beehive, the proper strategy is to single them out personally and obliterate them.

The War on Terror is not being fought in this way. It is instead a war for middle eastern domination. We don't need to be doing that. We could have caught OBL, militarily or with a billion-dollar bounty, then brought him home, tried and executed him (if in fact he was guilty. Liberty, people) and done the same to every single one of his cronies we could identify.

Justice is more appealing to the just and more terrifying to the unjust, than mere revenge. The GWoT is poorly aimed revenge.

 

[fisharmor]

Thank you Hancock for beating me to the punch.
One could reasonably make the argument that the success of the US was a forgone conclusion in WW2 - in fact, Admiral Yamamoto did exactly that. He predicted that he'd be able to run buck wild for 6 months - and it took exactly 7 months until the battle of Midway, when the scale was tipped and we were bound to win.

HOWEVER, for four years we were still fighting an uphill battle against a militarily comparable force which was backed by the civilian population. This was not a case of obliterating cities because some covert group we're fighting ate soup in one of the local restaurants. The A-bombs dropped because there was an actual plan in place to have every man, woman, and child pick up whatever weapons they could find and fight GIs with them.

What was it going to be, start obliterating cities and hope they get the idea that we don't want to play anymore, or ask GIs to bayonet 10 year old girls? That is why we were ruthless with the Japanese, although I'll argue that it was far less ruthless than would have been necessary otherwise.

Just Cause - They started it. Check.
Comparative justice - dead sailors vs. oil embargo. Check.
Legitimate authority - constitutional declaration of war. Check.
Right Intention - stop them from doing it again. Check.
Probability of Success - covered above. Check.
Last Resort - previously mentioned dead sailors. Check.
Proportionality - covered above to preemptively counter nuclear argument. Check.

Iraq?


Just Cause - WMDs? Dead Kurds? Failed inspections? Why did we go, again? Fail.
Comparative justice - What are we seeking justice for, again? Fail.
Legitimate authority - By the letter of the constitution, Fail.
Right Intention - What was our intention again? Fail.
Probability of Success - Seems like we tried this in the 60's and had bad results. Fail.
Last Resort - Last resort for what? Fail.
Proportionality - well, what benefit are we seeing from this, anyway? Fail.


Personally, I think staying in one place and making friends is where we went wrong.
Bin Laden went into Pakistan? Guess what, several divisions are right behind him. Mr. Musharraf, if you'd like to live through the night I suggest you tell your forces to leave the area.
Bin Laden got recruits from Saudi Arabia? King Abdullah, if you're for us you can turn them all over and demolish the buildings they used, and if you're for the terrorists you can expect a 3am tomahawk wake-up-call.

Note that I've said ruthless and offensive things which would get us in a lot of trouble had we had the stones to do them, but I haven't mentioned firebombing elementary schools or driving tanks through baby food factories like some of you seem to be advocating.

I'm with you in that I don't care what the rest of the world thinks about how we need to prosecute war. I'm not with you in that I need to be able to sleep at night. Surgically killing tyrants and leaving nations in disarray I got no problem with. Indiscriminate murder, I do got a problem with.

 

[AmericaFyeah92]

Note that I've said ruthless and offensive things which would get us in a lot of trouble had we had the stones to do them, but I haven't mentioned firebombing elementary schools or driving tanks through baby food factories like some of you seem to be advocating.

I'm with you in that I don't care what the rest of the world thinks about how we need to prosecute war. I'm not with you in that I need to be able to sleep at night. Surgically killing tyrants and leaving nations in disarray I got no problem with. Indiscriminate murder, I do got a problem with.

Right, but it is impossible to thoroughly destroy a government without civilian casualties. Same with a terror org or islamist militia that uses civilians as cover.