Make war--really make war.

Hat tip, CJ.

This just had my blood boiling. Some of these guys admitted to collusion with the Taliban and the US military even neutralized IED along one of their planned routes, but we're still charging these guys:

The problem here is that we don't follow our own law.

Since we use terms like "unlawful combatant" instead of "Spies".

Had we used the latter, which the top secret "incontrovertible" intel report says they are, the 12 should've been rounded up and shot.

If the battalion had the TS intel (and the company commander didn't, as mere captains seldom rate a TS clearance, why wouldn't they accept them as prisoners? What exactly did they want him to do?

It's time we stopped treating terrorists like some kind of "catch and release" training program for fledgling police forces, and started allowing our soldiers to bring the true horrors of war, and all the associated horrors that come with it, to our enemies.

You catch a spy, you execute a spy. You post his head on the concertina around your camp. If he was your employee, you round up his family and have them shot as well.

I honestly believe that. The only way for ANY nation to not be the target for everyone in the world with a grievance is to make the thought of aggression against us so unpalatable, so nationally suicidal, that people balk before considering it.

A terrorist flies a plane into a building, we find out where he was trained and level every building in every town within 100 miles of that place. We catch a spy, we execute him and every 3rd male in his village. We catch an insurgent, we kill him and burn his house down. We catch someone we suspect is an insurgent, we kill him.

We must strive to make war what it is and should be--the most horrible thing one human society can do to another. I espouse the wanton killing of civilians in war, the destruction of "holy" sites, hospitals, and any other place the enemy can use for protection. War--total war-must be so horrible lest we become too fond of it.

We must stop seeing war under Clausewitz' ideal of war as an extension of diplomacy, rather, it needs to be a failure of diplomacy, where one side prevails and the other is completely destroyed. Not necessarily to the extent of genocide, (although that should also be a viable option) but to the extent that the society which formed the government that opposed us, the society that allowed it to thrive, to make or support war against us, should be meant to suffer such that no one would deign to make war on us from that country for generations to come.

It's why there aren't a whole lot of Japanese people who want to make war on us.

19 Arab muslim males of Saudi birth were trained, equipped, and "mentored" in Afghanistan by the Taliban. The PEOPLE of Afghanistan are as responsible for those attacks as their government, just as the people of Afghanistan are responsible for every IED that explodes, ever rocket or mortar that falls on US positions. They know who does it, they see them moving about, they know where they live and hide. They choose not to stop them or tell us where the enemy hides. They choose to allow it to happen.

They choose to live on their knees.

Those who live on their knees will bow to the whims of those who don't. As a country, we cannot live on our knees. We must become a nation that hates war, not because it's mean, but because we understand that war waged by America it total, unrestrained, unabashed, pure ultra-violence. No trials for "depriving rights" or "Mock executions" or peeing on Korans.

Our best warriors would be sociopaths. Men who care nothing for the lives and wellbeing of the enemy, or their support base (which is all any civilian population is) and will kill without remorse. Men who will never try to limit collateral damage, but rather find the term ridiculous, because all the damage they do is meant to be done.

Yes, I know that sounds like the Nazis. The difference being, they were expanding an empire. We do not seek to expand our nations wealth through military means, we do it with diplomacy and trade imbalance. We should well and truly seek every available option other than war before the first soldier deploys. We will only do that if we know when the soldier deploys, there will be many horrible deaths, civilian and military, before he returns.

Let the Peace Corps do peacekeeping. Let warriors make war. And let war be terrible, lest we become too fond of it.

--Chuck