You can’t win playing defense

Regardless what metaphor you use or what your background in military or political history is – you can’t win any conflict by playing defense. While mindless or indiscriminate offensive operations can be wasteful or counterproductive, you just can’t conclude a conflict with a defensive strategy. Everyone who expends a tremendous amount of effort on determining specifically how Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab got on a commercial airliner isn’t necessarily wasting their time – but they ultimately miss the point. The real questions are:

Why didn’t we kill Umar in Yemen? It is becoming increasingly obvious that we had information on training camps in Yemen. We should have bombed them or used resources in the Yemeni government to destroy those training camps. We will know that we are doing the right thing when we start hearing nearly daily announcements in the news that terrorist facilities are being attacked in Yemen, Iran, Syria, Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia, and a host of other countries. No doubt they will complain, but our response must be – “If you aren’t going to kill them, we are.” If they start screaming about collateral damage then we are hitting the mark.

Why are we treating these vicious bastards like criminals? Umar should have gotten a one-way flight on a military aircraft in the dead of night to a cell in Guantanamo Bay and head of the line privileges on the water board. Once we drained him of information he could meet American military justice already authorized by Congress. Following that, he can contemplate eternity in a custom built cell. No 72 virgins for Umar. For Umar to have had the opportunity to lawyer up and remain in the United States is ludicrous in the extreme. There are precedents for treating foreign nationals differently than American citizens – there is no reason to change.

Why haven’t we declared war yet? Though there is no specific country to aim a declaration of war at I’m sure some slicky-boy lawyer could put together a document that would cover all the bases and clarify our relationships with people that are captured or killed in the War on Terror. It would clarify Umar’s status as a war criminal rather than a common criminal. A declaration of war would also shut up all the libertarians on the subject. A declaration of war will also untie the hands of the military and if written broadly enough, put all nations in the world on notice that if they harbor or aid terrorists they are going to pay dearly. It is a mistake for the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, CIA, and Coast Guard to be at war when the rest of the nation isn’t. President Obama has pledged that he would use “all elements of National power” in this fight – but he isn’t and he won’t – yet another lie. A declaration of war would be a step in the right direction.

Conservative Resistance – Day 424
Days to the November 2010 Election - 304