Here is the opening paragraph of my letter to the editor of the Greenville News, printed on September 17, 2001:
“The world has not changed; it has been revealed. We can no longer deny the dangers of our planet. Americans have long sought to feel protected by power and distance, as we try to hide behind that crumbling fantasy. Our way of life, our hopes and dreams, our world is at risk. And now we know it. The heart and soul of our America has been breached.”
Thousands of innocent Americans died that morning. And thousands more fine young American heroes gave their lives as we struck back. May they all rest in peace. May the families of the fallen find comfort and overcome their loss. And may we never forget what happened on that morning or the sacrifices of those who avenged that evil act.
It's 20 years later. The world is far more complicated, far more dangerous. And the enormous effort America put toward righting the terrible wrong done to us on 9/11 has resulted in turning our enemy into a well-equipped military force, a force that may someday use the military equipment we left behind against our own soldiers. In some ways, perhaps in every way, we are worse off than we were before we sent our troops into Afghanistan to defeat Al Qaeda.
There must surely be a lesson to be learned.
The recent debacle and tragic loss of life of American soldiers in Afghanistan should be a warning to any future Republican President: if you commit American men and women to a military action and leave them in place beyond your presidency, their safety and their mission may be compromised or destroyed by a weak future president. And you, you who made the initial commitment or extended a previous commitment of American lives and equipment, are also responsible for their fate and the fate of the mission, even if some bumbling future president, whose ignorant and heartless handling of the drawdown, makes the whole operation seem like a pointless loss of life and treasure. You share in that blame.
The President who puts American soldiers in harm’s way should be charged with bringing them home.
To go into battle and put your life on the line for your country should garner the highest of respect from the citizenry and from our President. The lives of our precious heroes should never be placed in jeopardy without a strategy that includes getting them safely back home.
Any military equipment that cannot be brought home should be destroyed. It should never be allowed to fall into the hands of our enemy.
Will we ever have another strong American president? Dear God, I hope so. But history suggests that we will certainly have more weak presidents. And there will most likely come a day in the future when some president will feel justified in a military action far from American shores.
We need a new strategy.
We need a strategy that will defeat an enemy with such overwhelming devastation that a protracted military involvement will not be needed. We cannot change hearts and minds. We cannot build countries. All we can do is squash the enemy sufficiently, so that they are no longer an immediate threat. And be prepared to repeat the process, if necessary.
I am not a military strategist. That is probably obvious. But the military strategists of the past have put us where we are now. So, I hope they will take the time to rethink the failed operations of the past, and come up with something that actually works for the long term. And I hope that in the near future America will again have a strong president, one who believes in liberty, one who believes in prosperity, and one who understands what it will take for Americans to live in peace.