Bring Them Home?

By Peter Merz


The war in Afghanistan? Should the U.S. ramp it up? Well first let's look at strategy? Do we have a winning strategy in Afghanistan? Not that I can tell. We seem to be handling this war with kid's gloves on. Look at some of the ludicrous limitations we place upon our soldiers who stand in harm's way.



Unless our troops in combat are absolutely certain that no civilians are present, they're denied artillery or air support; If any civilians appear where we meet the Taliban, our troops are to "break contact" -- to retreat! We seem to think that we're fighting a prim and proper British gentleman who plays by all the rules – not a bunch of radical zealots who think nothing of blowing themselves up as long as their enemies get killed or their cause is elevated (that and the promise of 72 virgins on the other side).



I think any success from a surge in Afghanistan will be minimal as long as we hamstring our soldiers with these lame brain Politically Koreshed combat rules. Al Qaida will think of nothing to create battle maneuvers where civilians will be present, using them as shields and buffers against our troops who are expected to shout at the enemy, "Time Out!"



I would propose either fight this war like we mean to win it, or bring our troops home. There's no point in our men and woman in combat sacrificing their lives so our president and congress can pat themselves on the back at how PC they've executed the war in Afghanistan. If we had used these same rules in fighting Nazi-Germany and Japan in World War II, that war would have raged on for who knows how long and we would all either be speaking German or Japanese right now.



Perhaps if President Obama would spend less time apologizing to other nations for real or imagined wrongs this nation has done and more time putting into a place a winnable strategy into place in the War on Terror we could actually win this war. But as long as our military policy is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, we might as well call it quits and bring our troops back home.