War Fighting is Upside Down

History demonstrates that wars have always been fought upside down. When I first saw the movie Saving Private Ryan, the first 20 minutes made a major impact on me. For years after I maintained the position that old men should watch those 20 minutes before deciding to send young men off to war. As a veteran and one who has seen war up close and personal, I thought these old men were not fully conscience of the full impact and brutality of war.

---

The real target should be the head of the snake

Most of today’s politicians have not experienced the brutality associated with fighting a war. They think they understand, but they don’t and never will. To them war is numbers, dollars, and ideology, nothing more. Somehow, in their minds they have convinced themselves of their good intentions, but it’s nothing more than new pavement on the road to hell. It is easy to send troops into battle. It wouldn’t be so easy to send their son Johnny or their daughter Jenny to war, but your or my son or daughter, no problem. Historically, wars have been fought by the poor slobs that have no say in the direction of the war fighting. They are the tails and bodies of the snake. If you cut off the tail of a snake, it grows a new one. If you kill the common soldier, there are more where they came from. The real target should be the head of the snake. When you remove the head of the snake, every other part of the snake become moot. The best illustration of this phenomena was when the United States attacked Libya and almost killed Muammar Gaddafi, leader of Libya’s government. Libyan based terrorism against the United States and Europe ended immediately. In this case, we didn’t need to kill the snake, just adequately scare him. In most cases, if the perpetrators of the evil ideology can be taken out, sending tens of thousands of soldiers off to war becomes unnecessary. If a few thousand of these evil ideological perpetrators are removed from leadership, the ideology will then be closely examined by those who remain to assess their personal risk of continuing that evil ideology. In small organizations the snake may have only one head or just a few heads. In nation states the snake may have many heads, but nonetheless, remove the head or heads and the snake dies.

---

---

With today’s technology, there should be little need for our country to send ground troops, en masse, anywhere in the world

There is one other consideration. There is an unwritten gentlemen’s agreement between heads of governments that they will not target the old men and leaders that send young men and women off to war. This, of course, exists as a mutual self-preservation action by the evil ones perpetrating the war in the first place. They are saying, “I will minimize my risk and send as many young men and women off to war as necessary to support my ideology.” Remember, it’s just numbers, dollars, and ideology. Remember too, as President Eisenhower warned, beware of the military (government) industrial complex. War is the biggest of big business. Where there is big money, there is big corruption. Where there is big corruption, there are big evil snakes willing to send other people’s children off to war. With today’s technology, there should be little need for our country to send ground troops, en masse, anywhere in the world. Special covert operations to remove snake heads is the recipe to prevent evil from prevailing. In some cases this may require people; in other cases technology may be able to do the job. There are a few other things that need to be addressed. The last war that the free world fought and won was World War II. When the decision to go to war is made, GO TO WAR! The limited war in Korea didn’t work. The limited war in Vietnam lasted more than ten years and didn’t work. The limited First Gulf War didn’t work. The limited Second Gulf War lasted 20 years and it didn’t work either. How many times do we have to do this to figure out that limited war DOES NOT work?

---

---

Wars have been fought upside down for centuries

War is breaking things and killing people. War means killing people that are not in the military-- unfortunate but necessary. Should it be your people or the enemy’s people? I vote for the enemy’s people. Short wars break fewer things and kill fewer people. Remember, wars have been fought upside down for centuries. First we sent our young men, and now our young men and women, to fight the enemy’s young men and women. It is the head of the evil snake that needs to be removed and that has to be a more precisely targeted effort. Killing tens of thousands of young people is crazy because a relatively small group of people have some really evil ideology. Remove the head of the snake and send the young men and women home to raise their own children. "I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.” ~ John Adams

---