General Douglas MacArthur once said, "It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it”".

The dutiful warriors fighting in the middle east aren't the people I'm worried about. It's the will of the American people that I'm concerned with. Today, decisions on how to conduct warfare are not at a warrior's discretion. The officers on Capitol Hill are mere politicians who let public opinion shape their decisions.

The average modern-day American simply isn't prepared, both psychologically and morally, for war. There was an article in US News (November 22, 2004) about various flaws in Alexander the Great’s Persian conquest in the fourth century b.c. Apparently, he is guilty of committing such ignominious acts as “turn[ing] over the wives and children of the Persian soldiers to the Thessalian horsemen as a reward for their gallantry in battle”.

If we have time to apply modern sensibilities to the bloodcurdling battles that took place almost 2,500 years ago, then how could we possibly stomach the necessary actions of our military today?
 
Alexander the Great's battle strategies are studied to this day at Westpoint and Annapolis. Even though his units were among the most eminent and propitious in history, a widely published magazine felt compelled to scrutinize history's "war crimes" and quell the contributions of remarkable men.
 
I think Colonel Mustard says it best in the movie Clue, "This is war, Peacock. Casualties are inevitable". Every time an American dies, the media is on it like flies on a pile of feces in order to cater to the emotional Americans rather than the sensible ones. I haven't just read headlines or news scrolling on the bottom of a screen. I've stood in formation at memorial services and fought back the tears, and the hardest part is thinking those men died in vain because we aren't allowed to properly fight this war.
 
The military brass is continually emphasizing the need to "win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people". Young men can’t be sent to complete such a mission or to “fight terrorism” because you can’t fight an idea. We know who the enemy is, and I think the infantrymen would just as soon splatter hearts and minds of radical Muslims all over the deserts of Iraq.

The far left never holds back with their usual litany about the illegality of the war, the torture at Guantanamo Bay (all proven to be false), the spread of more terrorism (the sentiment is already there, but more are fighting and dying now), or the lack of WMD’s (No, we didn’t find any, but it’s only prudent to act on the given intelligence). In President Bush’s speech on the day of the Iraqi invasion, he said we were beginning operations to “disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger”. Iraq was disarmed, Saddam’s heinous acts were brought to an end, and the Iraqi people are experiencing freedom they haven’t seen in decades. Remember, the people that said we had no business interferring with a harmless (though he sponsored terrorism) Saddam are the same people asking President Bush to interfer in Darfur.

Today's young Americans have the misfortune of coming after the inane peace protests during the Vietnam War and the people who still hold those asinine ideas. If anyone honestly thinks love and peace are the answers, they need to escape from whatever utopia they think they live in and the question needs to be rephrased.

 

That influence and that of far-reaching media giants like the treasonous New York Times help persuade "stupid middle America" who don't stand on firm political ground. It's impossible to be entirely indifferent when negativity is pounded into your head every day. I saw a bumper sticker the other day that read, "Had enough? Vote Democrat". It seems as though not being a Republican is good enough for most people who have no idea what electing liberal officials entails. The facts and ideas are there, people. Look into it. Whether or not you like politics is impertinent. It's a part of your life regardless.