I Dare Call It Treason
May 22, 2007
Right now, war is in the news as the Democrats
repeat their absolutely unshakeable intention to “end this war.” I
note that they never say “win this war.” Of course, it’s too
late for that, as I heard Harry Reid say again, “this war is
lost.” So if the Democrats are going to “end the war” but have
no intention of “winning it” how is the war going to end? We can
figure this out by examining the question of why wars end.
Why do wars end?
Sometimes both belligerents agree to “call it a draw,” but
usually this is not an end to the war, but merely a long-term
truce, a war put on pause. Take the Korean War for example.
The shooting has stopped … for now, but it is not a war finished.
Or sometimes an outside entity steps in and separates the warring
parties, but peace enforced is seldom welcomed and eventually
war breaks out again.
Wars end—really end—when one belligerent (the
loser) surrenders or is completely eliminated. He does not have to
be annihilated, nor does his capacity to fight have to be
destroyed, only his will to fight must end for the war to
end. In fact, a war does not necessarily end even when the enemy’s
capacity to fight is destroyed; as with a truce, if the
will to fight is there, the war is usually just put on pause
until the enemy regains his strength.
Rome and Carthage warred for decades and
Carthage’s capacity to fight was destroyed more than once,
but their will to fight remained … until Rome laid waste to
the city-state, killed or enslaved its inhabitants and sowed its
lands with salt.
The Allies did not defeat Nazi Germany until
Berlin lay in ruins, Hitler was dead and their was no more will
or capacity to fight. But Japan still had both the
capacity and the will to wage war, and vowed to do so in
the defense of their island until every man, woman and child had
died in the effort. The nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, which did not dramatically affect their capacity to
fight, finally succeeded in destroying their will to fight.
Their unconditional surrender followed.
The Cold War is probably the first war
in history to be placed on pause before the shooting started,
and the fear of nuclear war has kept that conflict on hold ever
since. The Soviet Union may be gone and its capacity to make
war diminished, but it remains to be seen if the will to
destroy the West is gone.
So how does an enemy defeat the most powerful
military in the world? America’s capacity to wage war cannot easily be overcome. A massive surprise nuclear attack might do
it, if we were somehow caught asleep, but this is probably
beyond the means of any nation existing in the world today. Can
Iran or North Korea really threaten America with defeat? Or is it
possible for a loose coalition of religious zealots to defeat the
mightiest nation on earth? Of course it is. Although they cannot
destroy our capacity to wage war, they do not have to. All
they must do is destroy our will to make war.
I don’t care what you think about the war
in Iraq.
Actually, I do care, but for the purposes of this essay, it
is irrelevant. On September 11, 2001 our nation was attacked
and more than 3,000 of our citizens killed by an act of war. Do you
not remember the horror of that day? Do you not remember the sight
of American citizens leaping to their deaths from a burning
building? Do you not remember videos of laughing, celebrating
crowds, firing their AK47s into the air and passing out candy to
their children? Okay, so you do not accept that there is any
connection between 9/11 and the war in Iraq. So you think that
there were no weapons of mass destruction. So you think that Bush
lied to involve us in this war in order to make his buddies the
Saudis happy and to boost the value of his oil holdings. Okay,
you’re an idiot, but leaving all that aside you have to understand
this. In war there is no substitute for victory. If we call
it quits and bring our soldiers home, we lose. And if we lose it
will happen again.
The seeds of 9/11 were planted in Vietnam,
watered in Beirut, cultivated in Mogadishu and finally harvested in
New York City on that fateful day in 2001. Don’t take my word for
it; this is the testimony of the architect of 9/11, Osama bin
Laden. He understood that it was possible for the United States to
be beaten. America, might come in big and shoot lots of guns, but
in the end he believed that we will not have the guts to stick it
out. America’s will to fight will falter. And so it
happens: every time we lose a war, we breed more just like him.
Every time we quit and go home, we embolden America’s enemies.
Every time we wimp out, we sign up for another 9/11. You have to
get this: in war there is no substitute for victory.
And that brings me to treason!
Imagine that it is December 1944. After a costly invasion
of Normandy, our troops have moved away from the beach and into the
interior of Europe. France has been liberated, and our soldiers are
engaged in bloody and desperate battles, slowly pushing the Nazis
back toward the borders of Germany. But now the Germans have struck
back, launching a massive offensive that has encircled the 101st
Airborne in Bastogne and threatening to split the Allied forces and
return the initiative to the enemy. The fighting is vicious and
desperate.
Back home in the United States of America, the
majority party in Congress declares its support “for the troops” but
pronounces, over and over, that the war is “lost” and the troops
must be brought home. Funding bills are tied to time-tables for
troop withdrawal and the President is warned that Congress “is
determined to end this war.” Taking their lead from the Congress,
protesters in the streets demand an end to the conflict and the
news media bombards the American citizens with an endless stream of
reports on the horrors and casualties of this “hopeless” war. What
do you think would have happened? We would have lost World War
II, just like we are going to lose this war against Islamic
terrorism if we do not wake up!
Treason is the only crime defined in the U. S.
Constitution: “Treason against the United States, shall consist
only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies,
giving them Aid and Comfort.” [Article III, Section 3] Those
congressional leaders in my fictional account above would clearly
have sabotaged any hopes of victory by declaring the war lost,
announcing their intention to “end” the war, and by denying the
Commander and Chief the funding needed to fight effectively. The
protesters in the streets would have been fighting for the Nazis as
surely as if they had worn the uniform and carried rifles. The news media, exercising the “freedom of the press” would
have been working for the victory of those who recognized no such
freedom. Can anyone doubt that we would have lost that war?
Can anyone doubt that those who are doing these
very same things today are working to ensure our defeat in this
desperate war against enemies who are just as dedicated, just as
fanatical and just as dangerous as those we faced in 1944? Can
anyone deny that the Democratic leadership is adhering to the
Enemies of the United States, and “giving them Aid and Comfort” as
they kill our soldiers and innocent civilians in Iraq? We can
win in Iraq, just as we could have won in Viet Nam, Beirut,
or Mogadishu. These terrorist and “insurgents” cannot defeat the
military might of the United States of America and they cannot hold
out indefinitely against a focused and determined effort on our part
to rid the world of them. As they skulk about the streets of
Baghdad and Rimadi, sniping from the rooftops, triggering roadside
devices, and murdering civilians with poisonous gas (those weapons
of mass destruction that never existed) they know that they are
fighting a desperate battle against the mightiest nation on earth,
but all they have to do is listen. Back here, in the United States
of America, top-ranking members of one of our nation’s political
parties are calling out to them to “hold on just a little longer!
The Democrats are coming to the rescue!”
I dare call this treason.
