Time to face reality

When I first started middle school, my dad gave me a piece of advice. He told me to never pick fights and peacefully settle problems others might have with me. If, however, a fight could not be avoided, he said that my only goal should be to put down my opponent so brutally that he would neither want nor be able to get up and continue the disagreement. \nI now offer this same advice to my countrymen. Al-Qaida is not some two-bit crime ring. It is a broad and increasingly popular insurgency, inspired by American actions and focused against American global interests. We are at war. The sooner we accept this, the better off we'll be.\nWe never should have gone into Iraq. It wasn't a threat when we invaded in March 2003. Now, it is. We need to put the jinn we released back into the bottle. We also need to stop underestimating the Taliban and make a real commitment in Afghanistan. We need to fully commit to victory. Otherwise, we only strengthen our enemy by providing it with further grievances to rally behind while we are slowly bled dry. A full commitment probably means increasing the size of our army and could also mean a draft, if other options fail. War is a costly thing.\nWe need more money to accomplish this. Wars fought on the cheap are wars nations lose. Our soldiers also deserve only the best equipment. That means, at a minimum, repealing the Bush tax cuts. Bush's wealthy supporters might not like it, but the customary sacrifice made by the wealthy in times of war is a treasure. War is a costly thing.\nWe need to destroy our enemy's safe havens. If our enemy hides among civilians and makes them targets, we cannot refrain from doing what we must do to win. We'll kill civilians if we fight like that. Killing civilians will make their families hate us, but many likely hate us for our actions already. War is a bloody thing. \nWe need to crush the enemy. To do so, we need to put our professional soldiers at risk, which will probably get more of our own men killed. I take no pleasure in that idea, particularly since I have a little brother in Iraq. Casualties are a fact of war. If we are unwilling to pay the price in blood that victory demands, then we should just accede to al-Qaida's demands now. War is a bloody thing.\nWe need to fight the war we are in, not the one we wish we had. We need to elect competent leadership, rather than the ship of fools that has diverted us from the course of victory and foolishly squandered opportunities. We need to follow Theodore Roosevelt's advice to speak softly and carry a big stick. But most of all, we need to shed the arrogance that has led many Americans to believe we are truly the masters of the world. Pride is a deadly thing.