The Power War

Two thousand, four hundred, sixty-one. That’s a number. It represents the scores of American military lives stolen from young men and women in the fight against Islamic Totalitarianism. But it’s more than that. The number means that sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, husbands, and wives received military funerals and memorials all over this land. A knock at the door or ring of a bell led to arrangements, and the process of saying goodbye to a fallen hero.

The number didn’t have to be that large, and maybe, the number might not have been recorded at all. With the War in Afghanistan coming to an abysmal end, Presidents Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden have varying degrees of American blood on their hands, so that number ought to be ingrained in their consciousness.

Military leaders like Generals Stanley McChrystal, James Mattis, and Mark Milley wasted every opportunity to lead along the lines of American Civil War Major General William Tecumseh Sherman. This man of might and intellect knew how to stop the utter carnage of a conflict that seemed never-ending. He took the reins, and struck fear into the minds of the Rebel forces. Sherman’s neckties, buildings that produced supplies for the Confederacy war effort, telegraph lines, and civilian property lay in ruins. During Sherman’s March to the Sea, a match was lit, and the rest is history.

Sherman was such an effective general because he knew the psychology of war. He knew that you have to crush the will, spirit, and morale of the enemy to achieve decisive victory with as few casualties as possible. In fact, Sherman’s campaigns through the South incurred few losses on the North’s side as well as the enemy’s in terms of lives taken or injuries. In this war, terrorizing the civilian population was enough to bring the fighting to a swift end. Very few women, children, and enemy noncombatants perished or were injured, either. Looting of homes occurred to further terrify the homes of the gray coats and those that supported them. The main push was to establish dominance so the enemy would be reluctant to look at General Sherman’s troops the wrong way.

Fast forward to Generals George Patton and Douglas MacArthur during World War II. They sought to overwhelm German and Japanese forces by being relentless, and focused on winning. Patton’s eccentricity (the ivory pistol, poems, and the incident where he slapped a wounded soldier) all served to show that a man of many facets can still ignite and inspire and be efficacious in battle.

MacArthur’s insistence that Japan establish a Constitution proved to be a decisive factor in helping win the war, and in securing lasting peace with Japan.

We don’t have leaders like these men any more. Just war theory, rather than experience, altruism rather than selfishness, have infected the rules of engagement, resulting in a preference for evil nation-building, more similar to the failed policies in Vietnam than the successful war tactics of the Civil and Second World Wars. That’s the power war. Young kids who risk their lives for good, selfish freedom, in defense of ideals worthy of protecting must constantly try to undo the political duct tape binding their hands. This doesn’t have to be.

With the War in Afghanistan, the only thing that generals and policymakers can do now is begin the process of withdrawing Americans from the country, especially the embassy employees.

No sewer systems, polling places, or schools should be erected by the United States forces here or anywhere else ever again. What should happen are coordinated airstrikes on the Taliban, with heavy bombing that will make the remaining members’ knees clatter. Did General Sherman erect libraries from the ashes while still prosecuting his war with the Confederacy? Did Patton or MacArthur build schools, or worry about the plight of women in North Africa, Germany, or Japan? No again.

The aim of victory is not to capture “hearts and minds.” The heart can’t really feel anything, so it’s really only the mind that needs capturing, and nothing persuades people they’ve lost quite so well as fear that the very next thing to go through their minds will be a bullet.

In bombing key Taliban positions, America would have a chance to restore its position as a force to be reckoned with, and respected in the region. Without this parting blow, the United States will not only suffer a loss, the Taliban will have achieved victory. The living American troops deserve better; they deserve a Sherman, Patton, or MacArthur. They deserve a commander in chief with a spine to admit faults and the notion to destroy the enemy without remorse.