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Cheap Seats Online 2015 Part BThe Polite War - 11/24/15 By Rich Trzupek
The recent ISIS terror attacks in Paris have served, if nothing else, to demonstrate how completely President Obama is dedicated to the liberal ideal of the polite war, something that even some members of his own party – including the presumptive nominee, Hillary Clinton – refuse to embrace.
The polite war theory declares that good can overcome evil at little financial and human cost, that war can be conducted in such a way as to avoid colorectal damage and that waging war in this fashion will result in the quickest and least bloody end of a conflict.
It’s an attractive theory, one that presupposes that if the powerful play nice, the less powerful will follow that lead. Unfortunately, that’s not the way the world works. When the good guys pull back, the bad guys don’t see an invitation to compromise, they see an opening to attack.
The alternative to the polite war theory was best expressed by one William Tecumseh Sherman, one of the most brilliant and successful generals in the US Civil War. Sherman defined armed conflict in seven succinct words: “war is hell, you cannot refine it”.
Sherman rejected the idea of the polite war for two reasons. One, it’s not a particularly effective or efficient way to fight war. Two, and most importantly, fighting the polite war ultimately results in a longer, more bloody and more painful conflict for everyone involved. If we must fight a war, in Sherman’s view, then best end it as quickly as possible, and the best way to end a conflict as quickly as possible is to be as ruthless as possible.
Thus Sherman cut a swath through Georgia and South Carolina that is still remembered today, not because he was a fan of burning and pillaging per se, but because he knew that taking the war to heart of the enemy was the best way to bring the bloody war to an end.
That’s Sherman, fighting a pretty civilized enemy. Contrast that to Obama, fighting about as uncivilized an enemy as the world has seen. Understand that the zealots who want the Middle East to burn. They are actively trying to bring about an apocalypse, because they believe that is a necessary precursor to the arrival of the twelfth imam who will in turn usher in an Islamic golden age. These are men who just want to watch the world burn.
You don’t defeat people like that by fighting the polite war. Evil like that cannot be “contained”. You take people like that out, or they take you out. There are no half measures.
Putin knows that and it appears that even Hollande in France, for all his leftist ideals, gets it to. Indeed the biggest mistake the ISIS zealots may have made was bombing that Russian airliner. I’m no fan of Vladimir Putin and his aggressive Russian new nationalism, but the man is one ruthless SOB. Power abhors a vacuum and Vlad will be more than happy to step in now that America has stepped out.
Meanwhile the President of the nation that used to be the leader of the free world prepares to accept 10,000 Syrian refugees while simultaneously wagging his finger at anyone who objects to the scheme on the grounds that they must be hard-hearted xenophobes.
This, even though his FBI director, his National Security Advisor and many members of his own party have questioned the wisdom of allowing 10,000 potential terrorists into the country. “They’ll be vetted” is the casual response. Yeah, how well did that work out for Paris. One of the masterminds behind the Paris attacks held a government job in Belgium. What kind of job you may wonder? He was responsible for vetting immigrants coming from the Middle East!
Obama wants us to not only put our faith in the efficiency of government, he wants us to put in the efficiency of his government – a government that took more than a year to figure out how to put a stinking website together.
No, boys and girls, this will not do. We cannot win waging the polite war and can’t open our borders to every Tom, Dick and Muhammed who wants in. Let’s hope we elect a grown up in 2016 who understands that.
e-mail: rich@examinerpublications.com
www.threedonia.com
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