War has always appeared to me that wisdom comes after the fact. After the destruction and the mourning. Afterwards, summation reports appear to outline just how stupid we were, books are written about all the mistakes we made, and about just how we allowed ourselves to be dragged into a trap it will take 10 or 20 years to extricate ourselves from.

In both places there is a vacuum of leadership. Leaders are confused and arrogant, and security forces are sitting with itchy fingers and looking for action.

It's difficult to see how the United States can win the war on terror given it's strategy thus far. The enemy that the U.S. faces is both intelligent and ruthless, with the latter of those two qualities giving them an advantage over their American enemies.

The last war that the United States won in which an overthrow of a country was the requirement for victory, was World War II. In that war, the United States defeated Japan, and to some extent Germany, by basing it's strategy on the concept of "a quicker win, means fewer American deaths". Ever since then, the United States has shied away from that idea as critics of the strategy have labelled it as too ruthless.

The military leaders of the U.S. during the second world war knew that in order to defeat determined enemies like Japan and Germany, they needed to sap the will of the opposing side to carry on the fight. To quote Admiral Halsey, "Kill Japs, Kill Japs, Kill More Japs." The phrase is crude to be sure, yet effective in driving home the point of how the war could be, and was, won, simply destroy as many of the opposing side as you can and eventually, they will give up the fight.

Contrast that idea with that is currently ongoing in Iraq. The United States leadership has decided on a strategy that calls for installing a democratic government which, in some manner not quite understood by the author, is supposed to stop the terrorists from trying to kill members of the U.S. military. The idea that killing as many terrorists as you can seems to make more sense than the plan that is currently in place now.

The biggest obstacle faced by the U.S. leadership in the current conflict is fear of public opinion. The idea of appearing as or being labelled as ruthless or civilian killers has cause them to hold back the full force of the military and, helped contribute to the deaths of many American soldiers. Take for example the Iraqi city of Ramadi in the western Anbar province. A phrase that you may hear to describe it is "Insurgent Stronghold" or "Terrorist Hideout". If it wanted to though, the U.S. military could easily retake the city, however, that action would no doubt incur the loss of civilian life. It is this inevitability that is causing the U.S. leadership to shy away from large scale operations such as the recapturing of a city due to the probable backlash it would trigger from the public at large.

If the U.S. really wants to win however, it needs to take lessons from it's own history. As the only nation to ever use nuclear weapons in combat, the nation that fire bombed Tokyo, and the nation that had a hand in the fire bombing of the city of Dresden, it should know that it takes ruthless acts to settle conflicts.

"Now im going to touch base on something we call Capital Punishment"

At the dawn of the 21st century, the death penalty is considered by most civilized nations as a cruel and inhuman punishment. It has been abolished de jure or de facto by 106 nations, 30 countries have abolished it since 1990. However, the death penalty continues to be commonly applied in other nations. China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United States and Iran are the most prolific executioners in the world. While international documents have restricted and in some cases even banned the death penalty, its application is still not against customary international law. Much debate continues in the US as to whether it constitutes an appropriate punishment, at least to the most heinous crimes. In recent years, the debate has been further fueled by the use of new technologies which have shown that a large proportion of people sentenced to death are, indeed, innocent.

Any man who murders another man, has declared that he does not accept the principle of individual rights. He is worse then an animal, as he has chosen to abdicate his reason, in order to act like an animal. He has adopted the code of the jungle, and must be dealt with like the animals in the jungle. He can make no claim to the principle of rights for protection. He deserves death. It is not primarily to discourage murder. Whether the death penalty prevents crime, or not, is irrelevant, or at best secondary. The issue is not one of prevention, but one of justice. The impulse for revenge is potent and natural. The death penalty is not used enough. The simple fact remains that there are way too many murders a year. I believe the murder rate can and will be lowered if the death penalty was a real threat for these criminals. Many say that the death penalty will not make a difference and point to states where the crime rate stayed the same after the death penalty was re-instated.

My response to this is that it was not used enough. Too many times criminals sit on death row for years wasting away, waiting to die. What type of life is that? Why not put these people out of their misery and save the tax payers money? In Texas it costs only 86 dollars for the state to kill someone, but over 30,000 dollars a year to keep them alive. If this person has been found guilty and sentenced to death, then why are we, the taxpayers, paying to keep them alive? It doesn't make sense. The Federal government and the individual states need to use the death penalty more often and more efficiently.

I'm so tired of hearing this argument. Putting some criminals to death does prevent "people" from committing murder. Don't beleive me? Go read some statistics about the number of murders that happen inside prisons. I can guarantee that after we put McVeigh to death he will never kill another person. If we leave him in prison, can you make the same gurantee? Or maybe we aren't concerned about one prisoner killing another? For some survivors, the execution of a killer does quench the rage. More often than not, families of murder victims do not experience the relief they expected to feel at the execution. Of course, survivors are not the only ones seeking vengeance. Nor are the survivors the only ones seeking peace of mind. In a way, so is the rest of the country. While death penalty foes are quick to point out that the United States is one of the few Western countries with capital punishment, it is also true that Americans are more likely to experience violent crime than citizens of other countries.

The death penalty is not some huge social engineering program designed to keep everyone from killing everyone else. It is an extreme penalty for an extreme crime designed to keep that one person from ever violating anyone elses civil rights. Thats all it needs to accomplish to be successful. If it has any other collateral effects, such as keeping others from committing murder, thats a bonus. The fact that it doesn't measurable enact that result, does not make the death penalty a failure.