It is a fact that if you don’t fight to win, you WILL LOSE. This was proven in Vietnam. We dropped more bombs in the Vietnam War then in all of WWII - and we didn’t win. Although South Vietnam collapsed after we left, we certainly didn’t win - even though we could have.
The air war over North Vietnam was a charade. We dropped all those bombs - on secondary targets and carpet bombed dirt trails through the jungle!!! The important targets, such as dams, electric generating plants, ports, oil storage facilities, etc., were never destroyed.
Before the US goes to war, we must be certain of two things:1) Our cause is morally just2) We have the national will to destroy the enemy at any cost - and come home a winner.
Fighting nice in war time just causes mounting US casualties and allows the enemy to survive. Then the enemy laughs at how stupid we Americans are. You can not fight a nice war and be merciful to the enemy. You show NO mercy to the enemy. That is how you come back alive. That is how you WIN.
To paraphrase General Patton: Our goal is to make the other guy die for his country.
During WWII, the US lost 400,000 men with a population about half of what America is today. Despite these huge losses of young men, the people supported the war BECAUSE WE WERE DOING EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO DESTROY THE ENEMY AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. The American people will NOT tolerate an open ended war that we are not fighting to win. Vietnam and Iraq are prime examples.