Subj: War with Iraq
Date: 3/5/2003 4:20:01 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: ljtallen@bellsouth.net
To: restoreliberty@aol.com
Sent from the Internet (Details)
Dear Adrian Banks,
This may be a waste of time, but I wanted to respond to your e-mail about the war with Iraq.
First, let me state my qualifications to comment on war.
1. I served on the Demilitarized Zone in Korea and participated in missions inside the DMZ between the South Tape and the actual MDL (Military Demarcation Line) in the center of the zone. Assigned to Company B 3/23 of the 2nd Infantry Division.
2. My first tour of duty in Vietnam I was in I Corps (Northern most part of South Vietnam near the DMZ) in daily combat. Assigned to Company C 2/501 of the 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile).
3. My second tour of duty in Vietnam was a year in Saigon. Assigned to Company B. 716th MP BN 18th MP BDE.
4. My fellow veterans have twice elected me Commander of VFW Post 9273 in Greenville, South Carolina.
5. My country gave me ten medals for service and combat as well as two Honorable discharges.
I was an "All State" Post Commander last year; one of only 14 Commanders to achieve this distinction (there are 118 Post Commanders in this state).
I have seen war up close. I have seen the death, destruction, wounded. I know the sounds, smells and the general misery of war. I am not a person to seek or desire a war if it can be prudently avoided. I am not ignorant of the costs both financial and human of waging war.
Now, you wrote about the bombing campaigns of WWII. Recognize that WW II ended 58 years ago.
In the next war we will not employ incendary bombs against cities. Neither will we drop unguided "dumb" munitions on cities. In World War II there were no munitions available that were guided by lasers or the more recent GPS sattellite based systems. During WW II we sent flights of as many as 1,000 or more aircraft to drop unguided munitions from high altitudes. These many thousands of unguided bombs were necessary to insure destruction of a particular target such as a bridge or munitions factory.
During WW II both sides targeted civilian populations. Political decisions were made that it was necessary to bomb enemy civilians as well as military targets. Also, due to the crude unguided munitions that were used if you were going to be assured of destroying a precision ball bearing factory in Dresden, it was necessary to inflict thousands of civilian casualties. We did it. So did the British, Germans, Italians, Russians, Japanese.
You may argue whether it was milirarily necessary. Whether it was justified. Whether it shortened the war. Whether it reduced U.S. casualties. What cannot be disputed was that in those days, if you were going to use strategic bombing raids to reduce your enemies war making capability, then you must use thousands of unguided munitions. If you dropped thousands of unguided munitions you definitely were going to kill civilians. Lots of civilians.
I do not think there is much question that the Germans and Japanese would have bombed American cities if they only had the capability to do so. They were not hesitant to inflict civilian casualties in Paris, London, or Pearl Harbor.
Thus your comparison of the use of air power with the technology available 58 (or more) years ago with today is simply inaccurate and misleading. Today we have the capability to drop JDAMS on specific military targets and hit them with great precision. That means fewer aircraft at risk. Fewer bombs dropped. Greater certainty of destroying targets with a first strike. Fewer (in many cases no) civilian casualties.
While the improvement in accuracy and delivery systems is amazing, there will still be mistakes. There are still rare occasions where a guidance system fails, a target is misidentified, or civilians are near a legitimate target when it is destroyed. There are still so called friendly fire" incidents where we bomb our own troops, or as recently; our Canadian allies.
War is tragic. Always has been, always will be. The only job of our armed forces is to protect us from evil.
The only way they do this is to break things and kill people. War is not diplomacy. It is all about who can break things and kill people better than the other guys. That is not pretty. It is the fact.
In the coming war we will not target enemy cities and civilian populations. We will not use armadas of bombers dropping thousands of unguided munitions. We will not do this because we do not have to do so.
There will be Iraqui civilian casualties. However, they will be kept as low as possible. Remember that one of the goals of the coming war will be to put a democratic civilian government into a post war Iraq. It is not our policy, and not in our interests to inflict massive or unnecessary civilian casualties.
My second point is whether we have been attacked or not and whether the enemy has the potential to threaten or attack us. We were attacked on September 11th 2001. The attackers were Moslem, Middle Eastern Males.
The 19 people flying those aircraft were not Baptists. They were not Catholics. They were not KKK members. They were not Democrats. They were not Republicans. They were not even Communists. They were not Cuban. They were not environmentalists. They were not Feminists. They were not Abortionists. They were not Zionists. They were not Jews. They were not Bolshevicks. They were not Beatnicks. They were not rednecks. They were not hippies. They were not Negroes. They were not Apachie, Sue, Creek or Cherokee. They were not Yankees. They were not Southerners. They were not punk rockers. They were not Televangelists. They were not the Bolshoi Ballet. They were not bikers. They were not Neo-Nazis. They were not drug dealers. They were not golfers. They were not NRA members. They were not Mormons. They were not Bhuddists.
They were Middle Eastern Moslems. They hate America. They want to kill us. They are willing to die to kill us. Iraq has developed and weaponized both biological and chemical weapons. They have used both types of weapons on their own people. They have fought wars with Iran and Kuwait. They have extrordinary amounts of money based upon vast oil wealth. They have worked very hard to acquire the technology to make nuclear weapons.
Unless we do exactly what President Bush is proposing and disarm Iraq the danger to the United States and to our civilian population will continue to rise. As the President says "time is not on our side."
In my two tours of duty in Vietnam, I learned a great deal about how a militarily weaker force can inflict casualties on a much stronger force. It is not done by lining up armies, battleships, aircraft carriers, fighter planes, tanks & etc. to slug it out.
That would of course be quick defeat for the inferior force unless the supperior force made numerous and repeated tactical blunders.
Instead the Viet Cong used civilians not soldiers. They attacked places that were off guard and undefended. They rarely ever stood and fought. When they did fight it was a disaster for them. The threat posed by Saddam Hussein & the regime in Iraq is not that they will declare war and launch conventional forces against American cities.
What they will do is arm, train, finance and equip Moslem terrorists of every stripe.
You took some time to describe what Tokyo and Dresden looked like and what it was like to be suffocating in a bomb shelter as US firebombs were falling all around you. Can you imagine what it will be like to live in Atlanta or Dallas or Charleston when Middle Eastern Moslems detonate a tactical nuclear weapon? What will New York or San Francisco or Chicago be like when 19 Middle Eastern Moslems decide to intentionally infect themselves with Ebola and cough on as many of us as possible before they die? Will they kill thousands of Americans? Hundreds of thousands? Millions?
I do not like war. But if there was ever a justification for a pre-emptive attack on Moslems, September 11, 2001 was it. I really don't understand how reasonable, thinking Americans can miss anything that plain.
I wish you well and I am willing to listen to anything you have to say. I just happen to believe anyone who is opposed to this war is misguided or else they do not have the best interests of the civilian population of the USA at heart.
Respectfully,
Dean Allen