Sheep or wolves?

In every conflict, in every venue, in every time, those who oppose each other have a very basic choice to make. This is defining the role they choose to play and it drives all subsequent choices. The wise make a conscious choice; the foolish let others define it for them.

In the business world it is all fairly civilized with only money and careers at stake, but in the realm of armed conflict, the stakes are infinitely higher. Both for the participants and those they represent. For make absolutely no mistake about it: The armed forces surely do represent us in an arena where weapons, destruction and death make the salient points in this discussion, not rhetoric.

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In his book, "On the Nature of War," Gen. Carl Von Clausewitz proposed the notion that war was the continuation of diplomacy by "other means" and in thinking rationally on the present state of affairs, it is not possible to consider seeing it as other than war, except by self-delusion.

On the subject of self-delusion, Von Clausewitz goes on to state that, "... the errors which proceed from a spirit of benevolence are just the worst."

We have already had many years of this "spirit of benevolence" at work – thanks to Bill Clinton – with its tough transitory rhetoric and absent action, except for the occasional laughable destruction of a few desert tents or an embassy remotely bombed by mistake. What it earned us was horrendous devastation, now two years distant, that Clinton's "fellow-travelers-in-blind-benevolence-toward-others" now eschew broadcasting scenes of. It might provoke "inappropriate feelings," they say, and that we must "move past that."

A more certain way to have more of that awful destruction would be hard to find. But, after all, it was not their family or relations who were burned alive or crushed into an unrecognizable jelly. So, for them, there is no internal or ethical reason for them to change their tune as they assume they are above all that – and above those whom they deem as the uninformed, insufficiently sophisticated rabble, whether they be a few sailors, firemen, police or just persons who work in business.

These smarmy people who actively assisted in putting our world into bloody disarray now seek to define our role yet again. Their coddled, politically correct minions ever so carefully brought along in the State Department and military bureaucracy make the choices that tether us to a post of inactivity to await the slaughter that stalks us in resolutely committed hatred.

An example of these de facto policies can be seen in the failure to protect our forces in Iraq in what has now become a guerrilla war. A Special Operations veteran in Iraq, with well over 30 years of service, tells me that people in his unit are killed or injured because we have not decided to go after the guerrillas aggressively and so remain almost wholly reactive. In other words ... they are now sheep for the slaughter.

But let us look to what this highly experienced soldier tells us about the situation there and then extrapolate it to the larger picture. He says that:

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The coordinated attacks on us are not the work of lunatics released in the final days of Saddam's regime, or average Iraqis who are incensed by the lack of reliable power and water. They are the result of a directed, planned guerrilla conflict that is only entering its first phase.

No matter what comforting pronouncements are made from on high, we can plainly see that we are at war ... and all the rhetoric in the world, save the proclamation of abject surrender will not end this situation. It does not matter one bit that the ones who have declared the war do not have their own sovereign territory or representation in the United Nations, nor that the time-honored tradition of conquering territory has been ignored. The casualties are all too real ... and will not stop coming just because we bleat to the killers that we "feel their pain."

In an earlier WND commentary, I wrote on the ease of use of a dirty bomb, with all of its components readily available in any sizable American city. This subject was just addressed on television by the Public Broadcasting System, albeit with some predictions based less in science than on the standard rhetoric of the left's useful fools.

Does any reader doubt the will of our opponents to use one of these devices? While it clearly represents an exponential amplification of the conflict, this matters little to these radical Islamists, as they have neither cities to contaminate nor capitols to bomb in retaliation.

For they have already defined their own role as being the aggressor and therefore carefully designed their efforts to deny their outwardly stronger enemies traditional targets vulnerable to conventional attack.

With us the decision of what we are going to be, our role is yet to be solidified.

That Special Operations veteran in Iraq and his fellow leaders are at this moment writing to new sets of mothers and fathers about the death or maiming of their children. The gaping hole where the World Trade Center once stood whispers to all of us that it is not just the people in the military who stand in harm's way. The middle ground is gone, as is the effectiveness of placating rhetoric. What remains to be seen is the number of our families who must die or suffer such losses before we can decide upon our role.

Will it be as sheep or wolves?

Tom Marzullo is a former Special Forces soldier and a veteran of submarine special operations. He resides in Colorado.