Sunday, August 7, 2011

Revenge is a dish best served cold

By now, most people have heard about SEAL Team Six.


We mourn these men, who volunteered to go into harm's way to fight those who attacked us, these ten years ago.  Remember them.



We have seen that the world has people who would kill us if they could.  It has people who would shelter them from us.  Who did shelter them.  This war is a war of vengeance, and is entirely justified.


But even such a war leads to losses such as we have just suffered.  It is in moments like this that we bow our heads in respect for those who laid their sacrifice on the altar of our freedom.

But then we need to steel our resolve, and let our veins grow cold again.  This war isn't over yet.  But it is, in every way imaginable, just.  Remember them, and their sacrifice, and what it was for. 
Those wars are unjust which are undertaken without provocation. For only a war waged for revenge or defense can be just.
- Marcus Tullius Cicero

Et lux perpetua luceat eis. Amen.

4 comments:

Dave H said...

And the people said, "Amen."

Irish said...

very well said BP.

ASM826 said...

10 years, and what do we have to show for it? Have we brought democracy to the unwashed? We have spent our money and sent our best men to die, but we have not fought for victory.

This should have been settled in 2002.

Goober said...

10 years, and what do we have to show for it?

My question exactly.

Have we brought democracy to the unwashed?

And why would that ever have been our goal, anyway? We went in to kick the ass out of the people that attacked us. Mission pretty much accomplished by 2004.

We have spent our money and sent our best men to die, but we have not fought for victory.

Hell, we don't even have a metric by which we can even base the concept of "victory" on. Destroy the Taliban in A-stan? Accomplished enough for what we needed. Kill Al-Qaeda? Same. So what, exactly, are we doing there now?

This should have been settled in 2002.

Either total war or no war at all. I hate this middle ground bullshit that keeps getting our best and brightest killed at the altar of - what exactly? What were they trying to do?

Even Leon Panetta gave a meaningless statement that "we will never stop, never quit, until terrorism is defeated".

Okay, Leon, can you explain to me why continuing to wage a war against the tribal factions inside of A-stan is doing anything to defeat global terrorism? Can you explain to me why we haven't had a successful large scale terrorist attack since 2001, and yet they are still a huge threat?