The American Spectator

Reader Mail

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Although Professor Reiland makes some good points in his article "Shock and Flawed," I am forced to disagree with his premise; he argues that the military stratagem of Shock and Awe was designed to break the will of all of our enemies. In fact, Shock and Awe was intended for a much more limited purpose; namely, the defeat of Saddam's military. In that, it worked exceedingly well (one can argue too well.)

I would also like to point out that America never brought the full force of arms to bear, and Shock and Awe was more Surprise and Shucks. In fact, the whole thing was a bit of a ruse to trick the Iraqis into hunkering down, waiting for the Shock and Awe bombardment while U.S. military forces strolled towards Baghdad.

The craziness of the insurgencies which Professor Reiland bemoans is a result of politics inside of the United States. OF COURSE terrorists continue to fight; they are taking their cues from the Mainstream Media and our "loyal opposition" -- the Democratic Party! They keep fighting because they believe that, as in Vietnam, Lebanon, Somalia, etc., we will eventually cut and run, and they will win by default. Treasonous behavior on the part of opponents of President Bush, coupled with a politically sensitive war stratagem in which we have allowed the enemy sanctuary in Iran and Syria, are the real culprits here. They can read our newspapers and hear our broadcasts. They know how bitterly divided this country is over the whole premise of the War. They know that the Democrats, and their allies in the Media, will do almost anything to regain power. Why wouldn't they keep fighting?

We needed to deal with Syria and Iran, but we tried to stabilize Iraq first. Big mistake! Had we dealt with our enemies to the east and west we wouldn't find ourselves in this situation. Now, with Iran closing in on a nuclear weapon, we need to act more than ever. We should have done this in the beginning. In this, Dr. Reiland is correct; we have, indeed, dropped the ball.

p>I normally love Professor Reiland -- I just think he missed the bull's-eye on this one. br> -- Timothy Birdnow br> St. Louis, Missouri /p>

Ralph Reiland's article "Shock and Flawed" is about a worthless a diatribe as I have seen from either side of the aisle in recent months. He lists many of the momentous gains from the "Bush Doctrine," but his proof on how its failed is couple of anecdotes of violence still occurring in Afghanistan and Iraq. That's like commenting about new law enforcement techniques that appear successful because crime has dropped dramatically, but claiming they're still just as likely to fail because there was a robbery last night.

And I'd like to know where he comes up with how the "Shock and Awe" concept was a joke because we were stuck fighting insurgents after the ground campaign. S&A was strictly formulated to bring a quicker end to the conventional side of the war (regardless of how successful many think it was or wasn't in that regard), and had nothing to do with the aftermath or if the next day there would be "regular morning traffic, people...driving around to pick up their pita bread..." .

p>I found absolutely no insight to his waste of AS space for this "Another Perspective," as you titled it. Don't we have enough of this garbage coming from the lefties? br> --

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