We Can and We Will

Opponents of US military action against Iraq claim that such an operation would divert resources from the on-going war on terrorism and impair our abilities to eliminate the threat from Al Qaeda. While I appreciate the fact that our military is not as large as in the past and that battling Al Qaeda requires deploying forces in far flung regions of the globe, I find this a bit tough to swallow. Consider if you will what our country was able to do concurrently during the Second World War:

- Send thousands of troops to England to train and prepare for D-Day.

- Maintain an air force in England capable of carrying out daily strategic bombing of Germany.

- Send millions of tons of supplies across the Atlantic Ocean to England while fielding naval forces to battle and finally eliminate the German u-boat threat.

- Send millions of tons of supplies to the Soviet Union often with convoys through the North Sea fighting off German subs and air attacks on the way.

- While all of the above mentioned were going on to invade North Africa, Sicily, and finally Italy.

- Build an immense Navy to battle the Japanese in the Pacific.

- Carry out two separate offensive thrusts against Japanese held territory in the Pacific with Nimitz leading the island hopping campaign in the Central Pacific while Mac Arthur pushed towards the Philippines through the Solomons and New Guinea. These campaigns covered thousands of miles with fighting from the Aleutian islands near Alaska to Guadalcanal.

- Send millions of tons of supplies to China to aid their cause against the Japanese.

- Send troops to China and Burma to fight the Japanese.

- While all this was going on we were also able to supply and aid resistance groups fighting throughout Europe including Norway and Greece, and in Asia in Vietnam and the Philippines. We also supplied food and other critical supplies to civilians all over the globe.

These are just some of the actions that popped into my head while thinking about this. The point is that we were capable of carrying out military operations almost anywhere and everywhere in the world during that time and we did. As I said earlier, I realize that our military is now only a fraction of the size it was during World War II and our economy is obviously in no way on a war footing, BUT to say that we cannot take out a tin horn dictator like Saddam while at the same time dealing with Al Qaeda seems to be an awfully pessimistic view to hold bordering on defeatist. We are the United States of America for Chrissakes not some has been, self doubting, European country looking for reasons why we will fail. If we are indeed at war then we should have the ability to fight a war wherever and whenever we need to.