Just Sick of It!

On October 3rd and 4th in 1993 the United States military, Rangers and Special Forces were engaged in a heated battle in Modadishu, Somalia. The heavily out manned and under supported forces fought hard to complete a ‘low profile’ mission to attempt to capture members of a vicious warlord. Those two days would write our nations military’s policy for years to come.

What policy did it write you may be asking? On October 6th 1993 the Clinton administration conducted a policy review which the result of which was to halt all actions by U.S. forces in the region. These two days of fighting and some horrific images of barbaric treatment of dead U.S. soldiers on TV showed the world that the United States didn’t have the stomach for a prolonged, and bloody fight, we were a paper tiger.

Paper tigers look scary, I mean that’s a tiger right? It could cause some damage. Oh wait that tiger is made of paper, I could blow it over, man that wasn’t bad at all. You could practically hear the worlds terrorists laughing and cheering when we stuck our collective tail between our legs and ran.

Fast forward 16 years and we’ve been in Iraq for almost 6 years. For a comparison, the entire world war two lasted 6 years, not just our involvement in the last 3 or so years. The war in Iraq is gritty urban warfare, and in the time of embedded reporters and high definition TV’s we have found the guts to stick it out. I know, I know the liberal panty waits don’t have the gusto to do it, but we did show that as a country we can when we have to.

Don’t think we had it easy, like in 93’ the terrorists tried every play in the their play book. They dragged American bodies through the street, kidnapped people, pulled out bodies of women and kids to an area where a bomb hit and said we kill civilians. Again and again we cried and moaned, but we pushed on and stayed the course, we were no longer a paper tiger.

It was a high price to pay in American lives and money. But we showed that when pushed and bloodied we can bring forth armageddon and have the will to keep our collective boot on the throats of those who think we will fold at the first sign on trouble. I’m not saying this won’t change in the new Obama administration, and we could revert back to our paper tiger ways, but for the time being they will have a little gremlin of doubt.

Yes it was a Republican president, but seeming we have the ability to swap those out every 4 years it can keep the terrorists on their toes and if they happen to have a long running plan hatch when another one of those is in offices, i.e. sometime around 2020, then they will be another country or two lighter.