Yesterday morning while eating my breakfast I caught an item broadcast on Fox News showing imagery of 100 high-level Taliban officials meeting in a cemetery in Afganistan. The words that went along with the image said “US forces were not allowed to engage because cemeteries are off limits.” Schools, hospitals, yes, you don’t shoot at those. Cemeteries? Seems like it might just speed along the process if you know what I mean.

The excuse given is pure humbug (bullshit in the common vernacular.) War is about the application of lethal force as quickly and efficiently as possible. This leads me to one of two conclusions: a) we were not able to exercise such lethal force efficiently and rather than face a failure our government is “spinning” by hiding behind “we can’t attack cemeteries or we sink to the level of our enemy” – we’ve missed opportunities before or b) there is too much oversight on our military from our political leaders ala Vietnam where “you can attack this, but not that, and only at this time.” I thought we’d learned some lessons from that little foreign adventure. Apparently not. I think our leadership is asleep at the switch.

The bottom line is this, you can’t be both a policeman and a soldier. You’ve got to be one or the other, if you’re a soldier, your job is to achieve an objective (take that hill for instance) and get out alive. If you’re a cop, your job is to maintain order with a minimum of collateral damage. We’re risking the lives of our sons and daughters without understanding or exercising this principal. It’s our leader’s job to know the difference and employ our resources effectively. It’s not a Republican or Democrat issue, it’s a common sense issue. Our leaders are intellectually, morally, and legally confused; current administration, congress, and supreme court inclusive on both sides of the aisle.

It’s well past time for a change in our national leadership. Our policies are failing miserably with no end in sight.

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