Defeating Islamofascism

There is much hand-wringing about the appropriate strategy to defeating Islamofascism.  This isn't surprising, on the one hand, because the people running this country don't listen to those who know how to wage war.  Political considerations overshadow the sane suggestions made by the military men because polls might lessen the popularity of the POTUS or the Democrats might lose seats in Congress if they vote in favor of continuing a very necessary war.

It's not that we don't have the wherewithal to defeat the terrorists.  Militarily, we are the strongest the world has ever known.  Our technology is the best.  We are experienced at war, having been at work almost continuously since 1941, with very few breaks.  What we lack, however, is perspective and will -- or at least our leaders do.

Years ago I watched Pork Chop Hill, a movie starring Gregory Peck about a particular ridge in the Korean War that was of little consequence strategically.  While the bombs and bullets whistled overhead, the negotiators in Panmunjom were shown trying to get a deal with their Communist counterparts.  For whatever reason, I remember a particular sequence where one American negotiator is fuming about the intransigence from the Communists and the other negotiator explains to him that this wasn't a battle about land, but about will and patience.  The Communists wanted to see how long the Americans would fight over that meaningless hill to determine what other concessions they could wring from the Americans, so they continued trying to take Pork Chop hill no matter what the cost in blood and treasure, because its true value was measured in political capital.

This was brought home to me last week as I finished The Korean War written by the excellent British military historian Max Hastings.  In his summary chapter about the war, Mr. Hastings wrote:

Senior Chinese soldiers  -- if not their leader -- emerged from Korea having absorbed the central, critical reason lesson for future Asian conflicts:  that they must never face a Western army on its own terms.  They must seek to fight when Western resources and technology count for least.  They could exploit the West's greatest single weakness:  the impatience of democracies.  It had proved difficult for the United States and her allies to maintain public tolerance and support for the Korean War for three years.  Apathy and exasperation with a national effort which was yielding no evident result became apparent in the American electorate long before the armistice....The message the Communists surely absorbed:  never again should they provide the West with so unclouded and comprehensible a reason to resist, and time must always be against the democracies in arms.

Asymmetrical warfare is the terrorists only advantage.  Given the tremendous advantages in hardware the democracies enjoy, it would be madness for the Islamofascists to meet them in a set-piece battle unless they were only interested in propaganda battle.  IED's, beheadings, burnings, hostage taking, hitting soft targets -- these are the only ways they can hope to level the playing field so that they can arrive at the result they want.  In the meantime, our leaders seem to think that conventional means will bring the terrorists to heel, forgetting the old saw that our military has to be ready to fight the next war, not the last one.

Underlying all of this is the will of the American people to eliminate the threat of ISIS, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram and the Taliban any way we can.  The MSM says we're war weary.  This feeds into the terrorists' strategy and emboldens them.  

It's easy for me, someone who never served, to recommend that we bring all our military weight to bear on the Islamofascists.  I have no sons who could be killed in the war.  But if this country is going to regain its primacy in the world, if we are going to be feared such that no one will trifle with us, we have to be willing to pay any price to defeat those who would do us harm.  Patience is key.  We have to be willing to bear the burdens that come with a war, because this is a war of survival.  Like the Communists some sixty years ago, the Islamofascists are counting on our impatience to be our weakness.  Once they sense that we are no longer willing to fight, they'll extend their advantage. Like the Communists, this is an ideological war the Islamofascists are fighting.  Territory and possessions are secondary to their ultimate goal.  They won't be bought off.  They must be exterminated.

I fear, however, that the political will is lacking.  Given that this administration believes that a deserter served with honor and distinction, I doubt it will agree with the military on how to fight this war.  I doubt it even recognizes the nature of the fight.  It wants to use distant means to fight the war and not put men on the ground to confront the threat.  Instead, it allows unarmed Americans to be slaughtered.  What's troubling is that most Americans either don't care or can't get their Congressman to oppose the policies in place.  I have no doubt that, unlike the unpopular war in Iraq, most Americans would not oppose a fight with ISIS and its cohorts.

To be a great nation again we must confront evil and extirpate it.  As someone very wise once said to me, it's a privilege to be born free but an obligation to die free.

I don't intend on dying at the hands of Islamofascists unless it's in defense of this country.

(c) 2015 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles