Give War a Chance, Part II

I just finished reading Vin Suprynowicz' article titled "Just once, let them fight till someone loses". It's a great read, though I don't agree with each of his points. Here's a section that I do agree with:

Imagine now that America, finally stirred from her lethargy, had fought through that miserable year of 1942, American boys desperately throwing away their lives at places like Wake and Midway as they took on a superior foe while equipped only with inadequate pre-war weapons and supplies.

Now, in 1943, the tables are finally starting to turn. We have finally driven the Japanese from Guadalcanal. Our factories having run at full pace for a year, we now have enough materiel to start slogging our way up the island chains toward Japan...when some vastly superior coalition of nations steps in and says, "Your response has been disproportionate. They only sank a handful of your ships and killed a few hundred sailors at Pearl Harbor. Look at the pictures of the suffering your bombs and torpedoes are causing. This is barbaric."

Something I've never understood was the whining about disproportional responses. If a terrorist or sovereign nation commits an act of war, then the attacked country has every right, indeed has an absolute obligation, to respond with brute force. War isn't a string of niceties. It's about killing people and breaking things. It's about making the country who started the war regret their decision.

Did history record any exchange like Mr. Suprynowicz described? Of course not. We had an abundance of people with common sense. They were people of seriousness. They were steadfast people who believed in doing right. The countries that now preach about Israel's disproportionate response aren't worthy of our attention. They aren't sufficiently serious.

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Originally posted Monday, August 7, 2006, revised 08-Aug 12:26 PM

July 2006 Posts

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