SEMPER FI, AMERICA
November 27, 2001 -- The Marines have landed - and though the situation is hardly well in hand, just wait a bit.
About 1,000 Marine Corps infantrymen were securing their positions yesterday in preparation for a series of assaults on subterranean Taliban hide-outs in southern Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Marine helicopter gunships apparently flying from a newly seized airstrip near Kandahar strafed an enemy armored column - to deadly effect.
Clearly, when it comes to conventional ground forces, America cares enough to send the very best first.
But the Taliban is tough, too.
Tough enough to evoke institutional Marine Corps memories of the spider-holes of Iwo Jima and the fetid caves of bloody Okinawa, and the booby-trapped tunnels of South Vietnam.
The Marines emerged from the South Pacific unambiguously victorious - and nobody in Vietnam ever doubted their skill or ferocity, either.
Thus it should be in Afghanistan, too.
But experience teaches that root-and-branch extraction of a dedicated enemy is a costly business.
"This is a dangerous period of time," President Bush said yesterday. "America must be prepared for loss of life."
True enough.
But, for the record, America already has experienced substantial loss of life - on Sept. 11, in the opening hours of this war.
Said the president yesterday: "We're now hunting down the people who are responsible for bombing America."
This is a righteous mission, worthy of sacrifice. Indeed, it is a necessary mission - to prevent future terrorist attacks.
Absent a wholesale (and wholly unexpected( Taliban surrender, young Americans will almost certainly die on the ground in Afghanistan.
But not in vain - not as at Khobar Towers, or aboard USS Cole.
This time, it is the terrorists' turn to die pointless, painful deaths.
And God bless the Marine Corps.
I liked it
November 27, 2001 -- The Marines have landed - and though the situation is hardly well in hand, just wait a bit.
About 1,000 Marine Corps infantrymen were securing their positions yesterday in preparation for a series of assaults on subterranean Taliban hide-outs in southern Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Marine helicopter gunships apparently flying from a newly seized airstrip near Kandahar strafed an enemy armored column - to deadly effect.
Clearly, when it comes to conventional ground forces, America cares enough to send the very best first.
But the Taliban is tough, too.
Tough enough to evoke institutional Marine Corps memories of the spider-holes of Iwo Jima and the fetid caves of bloody Okinawa, and the booby-trapped tunnels of South Vietnam.
The Marines emerged from the South Pacific unambiguously victorious - and nobody in Vietnam ever doubted their skill or ferocity, either.
Thus it should be in Afghanistan, too.
But experience teaches that root-and-branch extraction of a dedicated enemy is a costly business.
"This is a dangerous period of time," President Bush said yesterday. "America must be prepared for loss of life."
True enough.
But, for the record, America already has experienced substantial loss of life - on Sept. 11, in the opening hours of this war.
Said the president yesterday: "We're now hunting down the people who are responsible for bombing America."
This is a righteous mission, worthy of sacrifice. Indeed, it is a necessary mission - to prevent future terrorist attacks.
Absent a wholesale (and wholly unexpected( Taliban surrender, young Americans will almost certainly die on the ground in Afghanistan.
But not in vain - not as at Khobar Towers, or aboard USS Cole.
This time, it is the terrorists' turn to die pointless, painful deaths.
And God bless the Marine Corps.
I liked it
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