"KILLING IS THE SINE QUA NON OF WAR"

My calls for a strategy that kills the enemy, my repeated disgust at rules of engagement that use "minimal force," my acceptance of the brutality of what we must do to save our civilization are at odds with many of my friends views, and with their wishful thinking. My view is that the harsher the policy, the shorter the time and the less the killing. Minimal Force kills more slowly, and for longer, and is greater in total bloodshed. There is no place for Minimal Force in self-preservation. Period.

Donald Sensing is a Methodist Minister from Tennessee, who I think has a son in Iraq. He writes a well regarded blog, and I recommend a look at his writing from time to time. Click on his links to his Main page and Essays to see the kind of man he is. Here is a serious man's view of today's issue.

“Killing is the sine qua non of war.” So wrote Europe’s premier war theorist, Carl von Clausewitz, which he amplified thus, “Without killing there is no war.” This should seem self evident, but its truth is easy to lose, and easiest for the civilians who (rightfully) finally command our military. Even senior military officers, removed by distance and time from personal battle experience, can fail to remember that truism.

Of all the failings of the previous “strategy” in Iraq, directed by the commanders whom Gen. David Petraeus will very soon replace, the main failing was not keeping the main thing the main thing. In counterinsurgency, as with any other kind of fight, the main thing is killing the insurgents, for which civil assistance to Iraqis must play the supporting, not primary role.

Hence, the “surge” of 21,500 more soldiers and Marines being sent to Iraq does in fact represent a new strategy in the recent history of this war, though not new in the history of warfare. Gen. Petraeus, asked recently by one of the Congress’ armed services committees whether 21,500 was enough new troops, replied that how the new troops are used is more important than the number sent.

And lethality is the focus now, as we saw from the release of an unclassified version of the strategy by the plan’s authors themselves, which I analyzed on Dec. 17. Retired General Jack Keane, a former vice chief of staff of the Army, and Frederick W. Kagan, former West Point professor, wrote (and briefed President Bush) that,

We must change our focus from training Iraqi soldiers to securing the Iraqi population and containing the rising violence. Securing the population has never been the primary mission of the U.S. military effort in Iraq, and now it must become the first priority.

“Securing the population” = “kill the insurgents.

That is what's going on now. The "insurgents," read that as Al Quaeda in Iraq, are being killed in large numbers. Snipers that can't be cleared from high rise buildings are being killed and the entire buildings taken out with them. Read Sensing's entire piece.

This IS a new strategy, and anyone but a "useful idiot" or a politician who loves political power more than he loves America, would encourage it, would revel in it, would pray for its success. Make your own choice.