Posted on 03/29/2003 8:28:07 AM PST by Jackson003
Clintons weak and misguided military policies of the 1990s emboldened our enemies to launch the first wars of the 21st Century. Mr. Bushs doctrine will clean up his predecessors mess, but there will be a cost.
As American forces meet fierce resistance as they battle their way toward Baghdad and the British come off their largest tank battle since the Second World War, it is becoming clear that the days ahead will not get easier. It will take longer and it will cost more, both in terms of blood spilled, lives lost, and financial commitment. But the ending result will be well worth the price.
As of this writing, the latest casualty list was released. Currently, our forces have lost 28 killed in action, 40 wounded, 15 missing and 7 prisoners of war. The British are slugging it out with Iraqi ultra-loyalist paramilitary militia units, known as the Saddam Fedayeen, on the outskirts of the southern Iraqi city of Basra. There have been reports of these units literally breaking into civilian homes and forcing all the males above the age of 16 into the army to fight or to die on the spot.
On the outskirts of Baghdad, 5 divisions of Saddams elite Republican Guard are entrenched and awaiting the American advance. With Iraqi Defense Minister Sultan Hashem Ahmed promising a policy of drawing allied troops into the streets of Baghdad to become the enemys grave, there is no doubt the coming urban battles will result in many more American and British deaths from combat.
The reality of war is starting to set in to an American public that has long become accustomed to quick victories with no casualties from thirty thousand feet. Thanks to Bill Clinton, our collective attention span, along with our willingness to sacrifice for a worthy cause appeared to have vanished. Clintons policies have created a mindset of combat that must always come from the air, with absolutely no casualties, and needs to be over in a single weekend. I call this the Clinton Doctrine.
Clinton laid the foundation of his military doctrine in 1993 with his decision to pull the Marines out of Somalia after 18 soldiers were killed in the Battle of Mogadishu. This became the first point of the Clinton Doctrine by sending a message to our enemies. That message boldly stated the Americans cannot and will not sustain battlefield casualties and will run away the second a single soldier is lost.
The second point was that we must have an exit policy in any conflict we enter, essentially telling our enemies that we are resigned to our own defeat in advance of a conflict. All the enemy has to do is draw our troops into a few firefights, kill a few of our soldiers, show a few POWs on Al-Jazeera, and manage to drag the war into Tuesday or Wednesday, and the U.S. will lose interest, pack up, and high-tail it to the exits. I often wonder what the Allies exit strategy would have looked like against the Nazis in World War II. It would have been unthinkable.
The third point was tying American military command and control structure to the auspices of the United Nations. Instead of our own Pentagon running battlefield strategy, we would instead surrender our foreign and military policy to member states of this esteemed world body. To Clinton, allowing nations such as China, France and Iraq to determine what our national interests were and how we would respond militarily was the only legal way for the United States to use its military forces. Thus, the soldiers whose primary mission was to protect the United States and its Constitution were now reduced to nation-building missions under the United Nations flag. Essentially the military became nothing more than a large grocery store and delivery service for the international community. Many times during the decade I remember hearing of an occasional soldier facing a court-martial because they refused to wear the U.N. Blue Helmet, the U.N. flag on their uniform, and to follow the orders of a U.N. Commander. These soldiers had signed up for the United States Military to protect United States interests by fighting the wars that the United States might need to fight. The Clinton Doctrine provided a military-for-rent to all nations needing one.
The fourth and final point of the Clinton Doctrine was to never fight a war unless the entire thing could be fought from the air or with cruise missiles. The only reason Clinton was so bold in Serbia during the Kosovo War, a war that was never in the direct interest of the United States, was because there was no Yugoslav air force to resist the Americans. To Bill Clinton, a nice little air war against a nation with no defenses created a façade of invincibility that liberals continue to cling to. What they dont understand is that our enemies continue to see this as a sign of weakness and a decay of our principles and values. Without ground forces, a belligerent nation cannot secure an enemy nation, as history has shown over and over. Even Kosovo was not secured until ground troops from NATO (meaning American) finally got in and set up a demilitarized zone for the ethnic Albanians.
The sheepish Clinton Doctrine was the reason for the aggressive boldness from which radical Islamist Fascists have openly declared their war on the West, particularly the United States. To these tyrants, the time was obviously ripe for the destruction of America, the main obstacle to world domination under Islamic Law. The Americans had become so soft and weak that they would only fight a war from thousands of miles away. Terrorist groups and dictators such as Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein counted on this weakness to build their training camps, cultivate their cauldrons of hate, and create a safe base from which to wage aggressive war against the weak West until Del ar Islam ruled all of mankind. So what if a cruise missile takes out a few tents if there is no ground commitment to follow up and root out the main militants or laboratories deep in the caves?
Fortunately, the Bush Doctrine will clean up the mess left by the Clinton Doctrine.
The Bush Doctrine is simple and clear. It says the U.S. Military belongs to the United States, to protect the national security interests of the United States, and will not be tied down by bureaucrats of outdated institutions such as the United Nations. No longer will our military need U.N. permission to protect U.S. interests.
The Bush Doctrine says we will strike first to protect our interests when evil regimes collaborate and plot our destruction. We will not wait to be hit first before taking action to protect our citizens, cities and infrastructure.
The Bush Doctrine says when we engage in war, we will define the mission, create an offensive battle plan, stick to the plan but allow room for flexibility, and commit to see the war through until all the objectives are met. Bush will not entertain ideas of exit or other defeatist strategies. War is a dirty business that cannot be given opportunities of defeatism prior to engagement.
Finally, the Bush Doctrine makes use of coordinated military structures that utilize all advantages that our excellent military forces have at their disposal. It is clear that we will use ground forces to any extent required, with coordinated air and naval combat support. While cognizant of time schedules, The Bush Doctrine will see the war through to its objective, total victory, without becoming a slave to time schedules. The flexibility of the Bush Doctrine allows for our military to make adjustments to the variable uncertainty of combat.
As the Battle of Baghdad looms, it is becoming clear that this will not be an easy, bloodless war. We will see many more courageous American and British soldiers fall on the battlefield in defense of freedom. There will be times when our troops are required to clear out the defenders of Saddam, street-by-street and house-by-house.
It is possible that the war may go on for a few months or longer. We must be prepared for that. After all, war is not a sporting event on a sixty-minute clock. But we also must put the war into perspective. At this writing, it is only 8 days since the invasion and coalition forces are already just 50 miles from Saddams capital city. No one can put a price on a single life, and each soldier killed, wounded or taken prisoner is a sad tragedy that will affect families in countless ways. But we should note that after 8 days of often fierce fighting, our superb military has done the impossible by getting to the outskirts of Baghdad with such light casualties.
The Bush Doctrine is working. We must keep our faith and be willing to sacrifice for a worthy cause. That worthy cause is the removal of a brutal tyrant, the liberation of an entire nation, destroying his weapons of mass destruction, taking away Al-Qaedas source for these weapons, and making clear to the world that the United States is not a weak paper tiger ready to fall.
The message of the Bush Doctrine is clear. The United States, with Gods guidance, is in control of our own destiny. We will defend our principles and will sacrifice to protect our interests. The sooner our enemies, both foreign and domestic, figure that out, the better.
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