I’ve been posting some blog-length commentary at MeWe recently, while neglecting this site. It’s high time I hit two birds with one lemon…or make lemonade out of the bird life handed me…aw, nevermind.

The discussion was about the nearly two-decade debacle in Afghanistan, and what is required  for victory there. Here’s me:

One part of the problem (and I mean JUST ONE) is the wussification of America. Up until 1945, we fought wars to win them–and winning usually meant unconditional surrender. If that entailed nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or firebombing Dresden and Hamburg…so be it.

Third-worlders with primitive mindsets (which, whether you want to believe it or not, applies to most of Asia and the Middle East) respect that. You might say it’s the only thing they respect. They see restraint and mercy as weakness–and act accordingly.

(My debut novel, Hell and Gone, touches on this a bit. The first draft was written before the ground campaign in OIF kicked off.)

If you you believe some crisis or other is so important that our young men (and now young women, God help us) should be sent into a place where they will be shot at and bombed, then you better be willing to stomp the living hell out of the opposing force there–collateral damage or not. Vietcong hit and run behind the border of a neighboring country? We’re coming after them, and we might just have to deal with their sympathizers in your government who are harboring them. Cowards want to snipe at our patrols, then go hide in a Mosque? Raze that building to the ground and douse the rubble with napalm. An enemy asset is an enemy asset.

We’re dealing with people who (in Vietnam) fire on medics and use children in terrorist bombings. In the Middle East they’ll do that too, then hide behind their women and children to avoid reprisal. Hell, look at what they do to their own people. The only way to pacify a population in such places is to beat them senseless, then bash their skull in if they look like they might want to get up and fight some more.

People in the USA don’t have the stomach for what it takes to achieve victory over there (unless you redefine victory, as in Gulf War I). We’re too soft and comfortable over here, and can’t even imagine the brutality of those people–much less the barbarism that would be required to make them peaceful.

If we’re not willing to do what’s necessary to achieve victory (and we’re not), we have no business deploying troops over there. Let’s concentrate on defending our own country against the primitive third-worlders hellbent on bringing their barbarism inside our rapidly disintegrating safe haven–and the politicians committed to importing them.