Terrorism War (War Aims)

["Toshiro Tono" <the_harpoon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The key to "winning" a war is your war aims.

In Viet Nam the war aim (stop the spread of communism?)was too vague and gave no clue as to how to determine when the war was over. 

Contrast that with the Korean War had a similar goal (stop the spread of communism) but the aim was clear-return to the pre-war boundaries. The Gulf War also had a clear aim-remove the Iraqis from Kuwait.

Peacekeeping missions (such as Kosovo) are more like Viet Nam, have open-ended aims and therefore take much longer; it is also hard to determine when peace has been kept and the troops can go home.

To fight the war against terrorism, we the civilized world, will need clear war aims. Stopping all terrorism is too open and probably not possible. Also the way we state our aims could be a can of worms. Will we focus on bin Laden and his cronies or all terrorism world wide? In the second case, we could see military units used against groups not only in Afganistan, Sudan and Israel but also in Spain, Ireland, USA and almost every other western nation.

Being one of those pointy-end-of-the-stick people, I am happy to see the world leaders not rush too fast to respond the this attack. I am cocked and locked with my brothers-in-arms to deliver the wrath of the US and the rest of the world to the appropriate parties. I do not want to see us, in our anger, cause a greater evil than has already been committed.

My thanks for allowing me to pontificate, I now yield the soap box and return to lurking.

Toshiro Tono


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