The 3rd Punic War ended in 146 BC when Rome’s Commander in Africa, Scipio, defeated the Carthaginians in their home city. This was the third major conflict between these competing North African and Mediterranean powers and the Romans had had enough. Scipio killed and burned everything within the formidable city walls and enslaved the few survivors. Legend says that the Romans salted the surrounding earth to make it forever infertile and uninhabitable. Any semblance of a city didn’t reappear for another century. Carthage, former host of a powerful nation, never rose again.
This history lesson reminds us that great conflicts only end when one nation completely loses both the will and ability to fight. Let’s review a few recent examples.
The South of the Civil War was utterly destroyed and never rose again.
Germany of WWI was not utterly destroyed, and they rose to fight again within a generation.
Russia of WWI was not utterly destroyed, and in a pact with Germany again marched on Europe within a generation.
Japan of WWII was utterly destroyed, never to rise again militarily.
Germany of WWII was utterly destroyed, never to rise again militarily.
North Korea (and their Communist Chinese backers) were not utterly destroyed, and remain a militant combatant to this day.
North Vietnam was on the verge of surrender when Congressional Democrats saved them. We lost the war.
Iraq was barely chastened in the first Gulf War in spite of their naked aggression. In the Second Gulf War they were again not utterly destroyed, leaving afire a conflict that embroils us today.
Afghanistan effectively defeated the Russians (with our help) and within a generation turned on the US. They were not utterly destroyed and it remains an active conflict today.
There’s a pattern here.
The Railer remembers 9/11 well. He was in the Northeast on a business trip that morning. He watched the Trade Center crumble on the big screen TVs of a closed hotel sports bar. It was the first major foreign attack on US soil in almost 200 years. What was our response? We quickly took out the Taliban leadership, sent a few of them to Guantanamo, and started an idealistic but ill-considered nation building exercise that continues today.
We lost 3,000 Americans in New York City. We’ve lost another 4,000 dead and 20,000 wounded in Afghanistan… for what? Could it have been prevented?
Osama Bin Laden had been a target of our intelligence services throughout the 1990’s. According to the book “The Looming Tower,” Sudan called then President Clinton and said “we have him, do you want him?” Clinton failed to act. Bin Laden and Al Queda had already been tied to various terrorist acts and bombings that had killed many American soldiers and civilians, but Clinton could “find no legal justification” to take him. In 1996, Slick Willie was probably more interested in ordering pizzas, giving “that woman, Miss Lewinsky,” an excuse to enter the Oral Office and provide “other services.” 27,000 Americans and their families wish Clinton had been more focused on his real job.
President George Bush, “43,” is arguably a kind-hearted, gentle man. He comes from a fine patriotic family that values safety, order, humanity, and good manners. But The Railer believes that his response to 9/11 was flawed and that we need a new doctrine going forward. Bush mustered our special forces and quickly decapitated the Taliban leadership but left us mired in a dirt country of stone-age fanatical tribes.
Had The Railer held the Oval Office on 9/11/01, the response would have been very different. Once the source of the attack became clear – Osama Bin Laden and his Afghan Taliban backers – the order would have gone out to the Air Force to launch the long-range bombers and make profligate use of their conventional munition stockpiles. The Railer would have refashioned Kabul to look like the surface of their favored symbol, the crescent moon, and slather Agent Orange on every opium and crop field within their borders. Lather, rinse, repeat until the Afghans utterly lost the will to fight.
For too long the United States has invited aggression by its “measured” responses. We do just enough to momentarily tilt the balance, win the day, but lose the war. We had the clear, righteous, opportunity on 9/11 to send an enduring message to every current and future radical spiritual leader and reckless dictator. Attacks on the United States will result in annihilation – the end of your way of life. Only when there is no one left able or willing to raise an arm against us, only then will the rain of hell cease and we allow you to rebuild.
That’s the kind of response that ends war and prevents future “misunderstandings.”
In Afghanistan and Iraq … we blew it, and we’re still paying the price.