Total war: Billmon
writes:
... Berg's death is also a much-needed break for the apostles of total war here in America.
Indeed.
Consider these excerpts from today's
lead editorial in the
New York Post: (emphasis in original)
Now it's time to ratchet up the response to this war.
Forget Abu Ghraib.
Some people - some Americans - have forgotten about 9/11.
That attack should have been enough to justify all-out war. But the hand-wringing over the war in Iraq - and over even the modest steps America took to defend itself, like the Patriot Act - suggests that folks truly have lost sight of what the war is about.
This war cannot be waged with half-measures.
It can end only with the total annihilation of those who practice butchery and barbarism. Those who have set as their goal the destruction of America.
There is no negotiating with such people. There can be no compromise with those who mean to destroy us.
America has to come out swinging.
And not stop until every last one of the savage thugs is dead.
If that means a resumption of major combat in Iraq, so be it.
Would it mean another division or so of combat troops to get the job done?
Turn to our garrisons in Europe, or Korea, to get them.
To hell with political sensitivities in the region.
To hell with negotiating with radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Najaf and the Sunni insurgents in Fallujah.
To hell with handing Saddam Hussein over to Iraqis, as some want to do, and risking some reverse - perverse - kangaroo trial that results in his survival.
Let's face it: This is a job that's going to take overwhelming - yes, brutal - force. There is simply no "nice" or painless way to accomplish this.
This morning we just heard Laura Ingraham say "No more staying the course, we want victory" (quoted from memory)
posted by Quiddity at 5/12/2004 06:04:00 AM 
