My sea daddy told me long ago never to let the bad guys touch you. When they do, they realize you bleed just like they do and then they kill you. We should not be losing an average of two service members and a dozen wounded every day, and we long ago should have had a stable, democratic Iraq. The mantra of every U.S. President always has been that going to war—sending the country's best and brightest into harm's way—is the very last resort. They say it and believe it, but they do not understand it. The Joint Chiefs must make the administration understand and prepare for war, and the Joint Chiefs have failed miserably.
I never was more proud of a vote I had cast than the day before the war when my President communicated to the world that the United States would not prosecute this conflict using half measures. I briefly thought we had another Winston Churchill, someone with historical insight and a strong will. Then the war began, and it has been one huge enemy casualty-minimizing, infratructure-preserving, militant-Islam-respecting, coalition-building half measure.
We apparently never will learn that war, once entered, is all or nothing. Our half-measure wars since World War II have been inhumane and immoral. Who is responsible for the death and suffering in Iraq from the time of Desert Storm until we see a stable democracy? What about the people in North Korea and Vietnam in the past 50 years? Had we liberated them, there would have been one Korea all these years and Vietnam would have been as well off at least as Thailand. Today, do we have any more loyal and appreciative allies than South Korea and Thailand?
So where is the disconnect? Is the President ordering all-out war, and the Department of Defense not carrying it out, or is the Pentagon telling the administration we need to do this carefully and surgically? If our leaders are not bombarded with honest criticism about doomed courses of action, we might as well unconditionally surrender to France tomorrow morning. In his June 2004 Proceedings article, lieutenant Robert Pudney asks, "Who Is to Blame for the 9/11 Attacks?" "Blame me," he says. Our leaders to need take the same kind of responsibility for Iraq.
Since the end of World War II, we have lost far too many good men and women by half-stepping during wartime. It must be indelibly impressed on our civilian leaders that casualty minimization and infrastructure preservation only mean more dead Americans. Wars are won by destroying the enemy until the survivors beg for mercy and request we recommend to them a lifestyle to follow that they might never again see an American. If the Joint Chiefs are not clearly voicing this to our civilian leaders, the blood is on their hands.
Chief Brooks was command chief of Naval Reserve, Commander, Third Fleet, Joint Forces Air Component Command. He retired in January 2004.