Staying Power & Troop Strength

Those who criticize America’s strategy in Iraq fail to understand the nature of guerilla warfare. For any war of attrition staying power and political will is of equal importance to troop strength. In recent decades America has been justifiably critiqued for lacking the will to sustain casualties, which began in Vietnam, and later in Lebanon, when over 400 Marines were slaughtered by a car bomb in 1983. More recently during the Clinton administration an embarrassing “cut and run” occurred after 16 US Rangers were killed by Somali warlords in 1993. It was with good reasons the Al Qaeda terrorists felt America would draw back from the Middle East after the destruction of the Twin Towers September 11, 2001. One thing the bombers failed to consider was though America could be frightened, she could also be inspired. We were inspired by firemen in New York plunging back into the fires to their doom, as the World’s Trade center burned. We were inspired by Secretary Rumsfeld leaving the safety of his command center and assisting victims of the Pentagon attack, and of President Bush proclaiming atop the rubble that our enemies “will hear from us all soon". We were stirred by Private Jessica Lynch declaring through her pain “I am a soldier too!” When Iraqi citizens defied the suicide bombers and voted in their first elections ever, we were all Iraqi’s that day. More recently on July 7, 2005, we stood with Londoners as they carried on despite the worst attack on British soil since World War 2.