Dear Joe Six Pack-
I know that it is hard for you to picture the USA as the bad guy, but I want you to try…just for a moment.
Think back to what you learned in history class about the Revolutionary War. Remember how the Brits payed off informants, how they controlled the courts, and who was in each governor’s mansion? Remember how the police worked for and were trained by the Brits? And remember how the Americans responded? Instead of fighting by the rules, they made sneak attacks from the woods. They committed sabotage. They used the sympathies of the population and their superior familiarity with the geography to harass the British until they finally couldn’t take the trickle of casualties and the huge expense of occupying the colonies? Now, read the following:
BAGHDAD, Oct. 20 — The men gathered in the evening at the schoolyard to execute their attack. By the time they finished, at least seven rockets had crashed down nearly four miles away inside the American military headquarters compound in Baghdad, killing two U.S. soldiers and wounding at least 38 other people, according to U.S. soldiers.
From the courtyard of his concrete-barricaded garrison in southwestern Baghdad that evening, Lt. Col. Patrick Frank heard the distinctive sound of rocket fire. He hurried inside his command office to flat-screen panels displaying aerial imagery to pinpoint the launch site.
Within minutes, his cellphone began ringing. Several Iraqi informants told him the attack had originated near the decrepit school in al-Amil, recalled Frank, the battalion commander in the neighborhood. His sources agreed on another thing, too, he said: “There were several Iraqi police vehicles spotted leaving the scene.”
Now, I’m not saying the that the people that launched these rocket attacks are good people or that the people that were killed and injured are bad people. I’m just saying that the American troops in Iraq are in the same situation that the Brits were in during the Revolutionary War. The Brits won almost every battle, but they couldn’t overcome the myriad obstacles that faced them.
A healthy amount, perhaps a majority, of the American public were loyal to the British crown. But that didn’t mean a whole lot for the ultimate outcome, did it?
And, even though the Americans kicked the British out it didn’t prevent the Brits from coming back and invading America again, during the war of 1812. They lost that war, too. And none of it prevented an eventual civil war in this country, as we had, ultimately, to settle our own differences on the battlefield.
So, Mr. Six-Pack, it isn’t that we are the bad guys. It’s that we are the modern day Brits. We will lose this war. And the sooner we realize it, the less it will cost us in lives and treasure.
Sincerely,
Boo
