Have Americans Forgotten How Wars Work?

In war, you are trying to kill the enemy before he kills you. It’s that simple. You inflict enough damage on the opposing country to make them say “Uncle.” Part of that plan is a good defense. You not only have to attack the enemy, but you have to prevent the enemy from inflicting damage on you.

So, if an enemy can help you play defense and prevent American civilians from being hurt, maimed or killed, what should be done to make them talk? If it saves one American life, isn’t it worth it? How many American lives are worth torturing one person who would gladly sever a child’s head from their body?

Here is a great example of what I am talking about:

General Paul Tibbet, who dropped the A-bomb on Japan that ended World War II, recently passed away. According to the New York Times, Tibbet told a PBS documentary: “It would have been morally wrong if we’d have had that weapon and not used it and let a million more people die.”

And now here we are, 60 years later, wringing our hands over how we should treat people who have made it abundantly clear that they would have killed us, if we hadn’t nabbed them first. What’s the alternative that the terrorist sympathizers are looking for? To tickle them until they cry uncle and promise to be good boys?

There are ways of getting information from people without resorting to means some would define as torture. I believe we try those first, I honestly do. I give the American forces the benefit of the doubt. But which is more immoral: to torture to prevent the loss of life, or to stand by and watch people die?

War isn’t like divvying up the contents of a condo upon divorce so everyone walks away feeling good. It means people have to die. And sometimes even be forced to bob for apples with the CIA. Sorry, but that’s the way it has always worked. In the words of the A-bomb pilot: “I have been convinced that we saved more lives than we took.”

We kill them or they kill us. Is it that simple? It always has been.