Tuesday, March 22, 2016

What is the correct response?

Brussels attack: ISIS says it's behind terror that killed 30
... to which Ted Cruz responds:
Ted Cruz Wants Police To ‘Patrol And Secure’ U.S. Muslim Communities After Brussels
... also stating that,
“We should use overwhelming force, kill the enemy and then we should get the heck out,” he said.
... and The Donald:
Trump on Brussels: Told you so
... and advocating for torture.

Disclaimer: I don't have a clue how to attack/defeat ISIS.
("Defeat" is the better verb.)
BUT: using overwhelming force (what Cruz has previously called "carpet bombing") to "destroy the enemy" and then get out is almost certainly NOT the way to go.

A reminder of what it takes:
On V-E Day, Eisenhower had sixty-one U.S. divisions, 1,622,000 men, in Germany, and a total force in Europe numbering 3,077,000.1 When the shooting ended, the divisions in the field became the occupation troops, charged with maintaining law and order and establishing the Allied military presence in the defeated nation. This was the army-type occupation. A counterpart of the military government carpet, its object was to control the population and stifle resistance by putting troops into every nook and cranny.

[THE U.S. ARMY IN THE OCCUPATION OF GERMANY 1944-1946, by Earl F. Ziemke, CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY UNITED STATES ARMY, WASHINGTON, D. C., 1990]
1.6 MILLION troops in the country, to maintain law and order.

As I've said repeatedly, the object of war is to win the peace.
Winning the peace means holding territory and controlling populations.
Simply getting the heck out after demolishing every building, road, rail-line, power-plant, and oil well in sight will NOT win the peace!

Again: I don't know what we ought do, but the GOP candidates's proposals don't sound all that great to me.

An aside: I'm also not too fond of the idea to "Patrol and Secure" U.S. Muslim communities.
... sounds like a first step to rounding up all the Muslims and shipping them to camps.
We've seen where that leads.

2 comments:

  1. On the other hand, the mosque in Tulsa held a party to thank the police for patrolling around the mosque to prevent vandalism and hate crimes.

    Although it is not what Ted Cruz had in mind, it would be a good idea for cops to patrol mosques to protect them from hate crimes at a time like this.

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  2. There is a large police presence at Melissa's synagogue on all high holy days. This is a good thing.

    ReplyDelete