Why We Are Losing the "War On Terror"

Kodiak, Alaska

Five years ago the United States of America was attacked from behind. Misguided men, full of rage and hatred, were shot at us like bullets by the spoiled son of a Saudi tycoon. Our response was to mount a "war on terror". Today the number of Americans killed in Iraq equals the number killed at the Towers and untold thousands of innocent Iraqis lie dead in their shattered homeland. Our thinned military strains to hold back the Taliban in Afghanistan and our national bank account is tapped out. In five years our nation has gone from a champion of freedom to a champion of torture. Osama must be laughing his ass off.

We have become his tool. We have become the enemy he needs. One that inspires hate.

We might do well to remember our own history. In the winter of 1781 George Washington's Continental army was cold, shoeless, and mutinous. British General Charles Cornwallis, commanding a far superior force, had the Carolinas well under control. Add to this the fact that many of the residents were extremely iffy about this whole "revolution" thing in the first place. Loyalists to the Crown abounded, and even the revolutionaries were starting to wonder they could possibly beat the British army.

Enter Nate Green, new commander of Washington's Southern Army. His strategy was simple: poke them in the eye and run. The Southern Army got very good at running away. Cornwallis chased them up and down the Carolinas without ever engaging them in a nice satisfying Napoleon-at-Waterloo type showdown. This frustrated the hell out of old Corny, and the madder he got the more he tore around- ripping up the countryside, marching through fields and occupying people's homes, kicking their dogs and stealing their winter provisions. Washington had given very specific orders that the Southern Army was to do none of that, and in fact, they did the opposite, aiding the citizenry whenever possible. Corny was increasingly suspicious of the locals, thinking that they were giving aid to the enemy ("You are either with us or against us.") and by the time springtime rolled around he was right. The population was iffy no more. They hated the bloody British.

We are Cornwallis in Iraq. We are uniting the people in their common hatred of the bloody Americans.

Let us learn from our past. King George should have fired Corny. We should fire Rummy. Mr. Rumsfeld has proven himself beyond incompetent. The man is a disaster. Our sons and daughters who make up America's armed forces deserve effective leadership. When our own King George tells us we must "stay the course" he shows his own inability to learn and adjust. It is time for the United States Congress to put its foot down and demand new leadership. We can't abandon Iraq now, the way we left Afghanistan to the Taliban after the withdrawal of the Soviets. But we also can't expect better results by continuing to make the same mistakes.