It’s Saturday – Is Losing Wars Our Strategy

We lost in Korea. Blood and treasure were spent, a cease-fire was signed and troops have been stationed there for almost 60 years. We fought to a stalemate of our choosing for fear of involving the Russians and Chinese more. That should have been considered before and if we were not willing to risk all the chips stayed home. Now we have the real threat of a nuclear war.

We lost in Vietnam. You could argue that it was not ours to win. You could argue we had no real interests there. You could argue it was ineptly managed. We feared the response of both the Russians and Chinese if we pulled out all the stops. It was 20 years of war. It took decades for our military to recover. 

Now the Islamists are winning. They have been at war with all non-Muslims since the beginning. We have been shooting them since 2001. There has been no forward progress. They maintain a moderate threat level and we expend billions to counter it and take off our shoes in airports. Our military capability has almost been destroyed from attrition. They are winning. Or maybe not. This article from The New Yorker tells a story about the shrinking ISIS due to losses, no food, and no pay.

The only way to win a war is to keeping killing until they no longer have the will to keep fighting. Alexander knew this. Sherman knew it in the Civil War. It was not done in WWI and WWII followed.
We forgot this lesson in Korea, Vietnam and now in our half-hearted war with Islamists.

There are no half measures to win.

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As I typed this I thought where have I heard half measures used recently. So I Googled and it was Mike in Breaking Bad. He tells this story to Walter. It applies to war also.

I used to be a beat cop a long time ago.

And I’d get called out on domestic disputes all the time, hundreds probably over the years.

But there was this one guy, this one piece of shit, that I will never forget. Gordy, he looked like Bo Svenson, you remember him? Walking Tall? You don’t remember? Anyway, big boy. 270, 280. But his wife, whatever she was, his lady…was real small. Like a bird. Wrists like little branches. Anyway, my partner and I got called out there every weekend, and one of us would pull her aside and say “come on, tonight’s the night we press charges.” And this wasn’t one of those deep-down he-loves-me set-ups — we get a lot of those — but not this. This girl was scared. She wasn’t going to cross him, no way, no how. Nothing we could do but pass her off to the EMT’s, put him in a car and drive him downtown, throw him in the drunk tank. He sleeps it off, next morning out he goes back home.

But one night, my partner’s out sick, and it’s just me. And the call comes in and it’s the usual crap. Broke her nose in the shower kind of thing. So I cuff him, put him in the car and away we go. Only that night, we’re driving into town, and this sideways asshole is in my back seat humming “Danny Boy.” And it just rubbed me wrong. So instead of left, I go right, out into nowhere. And I kneel him down, and I put my revolver in his mouth, and I told him, “This is it. This is how it ends.” And he’s crying, going to the bathroom all over himself, swearing to God he’s going to leave her alone. Screaming … as much as you can with a gun in your mouth. And I told him to be quiet. Cause I needed to think about what I was going to do here. And of course, he got quiet. Goes still. And real quiet. Like a dog waiting for dinner scraps. And we just stood there for a while, me acting like I’m thinking things over, and Prince Charming kneeling in the dirt with shit in his pants. And after a few minutes, I took the gun out of his mouth, and I say, “So help me if you touch her again I will such-and-such and such-and-such and blah blah blah blah blah”.

Just trying to do the right thing. But two weeks later he killed her. Of course. Caved her head in with the base of a Waring blender. We got there, there was so much blood you could taste the metal. The moral of the story is: I chose a half measure when I should have gone all the way. I’ll never make that mistake again.

No more half measures, Walter

It was a half measure to stop short of Bagdad in the Gulf War. After several more half measures, Iraq is still not stable. If our objective was regime change, we should have done that and got out the next day. If we had some insane idea we could establish democracy there, we should have not stopped until we got it. But, no half measures. It is a waste of Blood and Treasure.

Trump He proceeds each day with the confidence of one who thinks his foundation firm when it’s not—it’s shaky. His job is to build support, win people over through persuasion, and score some legislative victories that will encourage a public sense that he is competent, even talented.

Trump is like a doctor with poor bedside manner. He tells you the truth, what you need to hear, but in a shocking way. That’s Trump. The same guy that was on The Apprentice.

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Obama created Trump by polarizing the country, ignoring the red states in-between the coasts, institutionalizing executive orders, commenting on ongoing criminal cases, allowing his administration to be plagued by scandals (IRS, GSA, VA, etc.), not investigating the Russian collusions of the Clinton Foundation, and bringing popular culture, like profane rappers and GloZell into the presidential orbit.

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Just once more before I die I would like a President to say, I would like the Congress to consider doing blah-blah-blah and here’s why.

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I read that the current Playmate is a tranny and trigger warnings are given to students reading Shakespeare. Civilization has ended.