Tuesday, May 18, 2004

Sun Tzu and George W. Bush

It is embarrising to me that George W. Bush is an Ivy Leauge educated leader who seems to have never studied the work of the greatest military strategist of all time. Sun Tzu wrote the "Art of War" in around 300 BC. In this great philospohical strategy guide he laid down the sage advice of a veteran of many wars.

Sun Tzu writes: "Now in order to kill the enemy, our men must be roused to anger; that there may be advantage from defeating the enemy, they must have their rewards. Therefore in chariot fighting, when ten or more chariots have been taken, those should be rewarded who took the first. Our own flags should be substituted for those of the enemy, and the chariots mingled and used in conjunction with ours. The captured soldiers should be kindly treated and kept. This is called, using the conquered foe to augment one's own strength. In war, then, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns. "

What would "rouse to anger" our soldiers. An attack on American capitalism and U.S. soil? Yes, I think so. A small dictator torturing his subjects? No I don't think so. The problem with the war in Iraq is there is no anger. Hussein, the monster I agree he was, has NEVER acted aggressively against the US. Yes he acted aggressively against Kuwait and his own people. Yes he was devising weapons we did not want him to have. (I do believe we will still find WMDs in Iraq) Yes, I believe he may have been a FUTURE threat to the US. However we have and had a CURRENT threat. A true zealot who attcked our soil and our civilians. The war in Iraq takes the focus off the subject of our anger.
We should punsih Bin Laden and all faithful to him, but the military occupation of Iraq only serves to distract our nation and our military from this, the source of our anger.

Iraq will be only a lengthy campaign, no matter what the final outcome. There is NO victory to be found in Iraq. Seeing Bin Laden's body hanging from an American gallow would be victory. Sun Tzu saw the objective we need to search after.

No comments: