Know Your Enemies

Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese warrior philosopher, in his classic, The Art of War, wrote that in order to be victorious you must "know your enemy." You must know his numbers, his weaponry, his strengths and his weaknesses, but more important than mere statistics, you must know him. The king, the general, the leader, whoever he is, must be identified and defined. You must know how he thinks, his resolve, his desperation or his pride. Studying his experience and accomplishments will help you evaluate his ability, anticipate his next move, and form a strategy to lead you to victory.

Alexander the Great was a master at seeing the situation from his enemy's viewpoint and then developing battle plans and weapons to defeat him. His genius was his ability to outmaneuver and outfight armies that were two or three times the size of his own, and in a twelve year quest to conquer the world he never lost a battle.

Robert E. Lee was another master at evaluating his enemies. He understood the weaknesses of the Union generals that opposed him and through bold, daring attacks, even when he was vastly outnumbered, exploited his enemies' weaknesses and put them to shame. He also saw the potential in one Ulysses S. Grant and once made a comment something to the effect that, "If the North ever finds out what they have in Grant we are in trouble." Lee was right.

Grant also had an uncanny ability to outthink his opponents and unnerve them with daring maneuvers. He also knew and understood Robert E. Lee. He knew "Marse Robert" was as cunning as a fox, that he would be anticipating what Grant was thinking and would be able to quickly maneuver his army to the best position on the battlefield. But Grant understood what Union generals before him did not. No matter how many times Lee whipped him, he had limited resources in men and supplies and could be bled dry. The reason he was victorious so often was that every time he defeated the Army of the Potomac the generals ordered a retreat to re-outfit, giving Lee months at a time to recuperate and rebuild his army. Once Grant engaged him, he held on like a bulldog, never letting Lee get away or have time to rest. The Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor and the Crater were tactical victories for the Confederates, but Grant continued to pound at Lee until he wore out Lee's army and won the war.

America today is suffering because of leadership that doesn't know its enemies. To be sure, we were much better off with George Bush as president on 9/11 than we would have been with Al Gore. Bush's rapid response against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan no doubt prevented further attacks on our soil. His extension of the war into Iraq has been questioned considerably, but he took out an Al Qaeda strong hold as well as overthrew a maniacal dictator that was a mass murderer and a threat to stability in the entire region.

There are those who call the War on Terror a misnomer. Terror is not a definable enemy they say. You can't fight a war against a generic term. It's a wasted argument. America's first international war after the Revolution was the War of 1812. What kind of an enemy was 1812? I don't think the term makes a difference. What does make a difference is the meaning of the term and the kind of people it represents. President George Bush didn't understand either.

Bush went out of his way to appease the Islamic world community by saying we are not at war with Islam. Yet, every terrorist attack on US soil or US interests around the world in the last twenty years (with the exception of Timothy McVeigh, whose attack was from within, not from without) has been made by Muslims. Bush praised Islam over and over as an honorable religion that does not promote war and atrocities, and that it was only "radical" Muslims that were guilty. It was only Al Qaeda and the Taliban that we were after. Yet most of Al Qaeda's recruits come from Saudi Arabia, Palestinian Muslims rejoiced in the streets over the 9/11 attacks, and not one Muslim nation offered the United States either an apology or its condolences for the atrocities Muslims committed against Americans that day. In fact, it is the "holy Kor-ran" (roll the R) that Obama loves to quote to Muslims around the world that teaches, yea, demands jihad against all infidels including the nation the Iranian ayatollahs have designated the "Great Satan," the United States. Islam is not, in fact, a peaceful religion, neither has it ever been.

Bush went to war with "shock and awe," leading many to believe that the US military would so decimate the enemy that the war would be over in no time. It could have been a relatively short time anyway, but just when the Taliban was on the run and troops had bin-Laden cornered, the war in Afghanistan came to a screeching halt so most of the troops could be moved to Iraq where another brilliant campaign quickly destroyed Saddam Hussein's army. But then there seemed to be a lack of resolve to carry the battle on further. While we sat the Taliban reorganized and came back, Al Qaeda fled to Pakistan and regrouped, and a suicide bomber campaign and multiple beheadings took place in Iraq. At the plea of generals for more troops Bush and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld were unmoved and the war stagnated on both fronts. We came dangerously close to fulfilling Ted Kennedy's prediction that this would be another Vietnam quagmire.

The surge of troops into Iraq in 2007 finally rooted out Al Qaeda and most of its leaders and brought the war basically to an end, allowing the redeployment of troops to Afghanistan. Now, nine years after it started, we are still fighting that end of the war, and suicide bombers are making a comeback again in Iraq. To make matters worse, now we have a president who understands even less than Bush did about fighting to win. He is intent on pulling the troops out on a specific time schedule whether or not the battlefield is secure. You have to wonder whose side he is actually on.

That brings us back to Sun Tzu. His complete statement is not just about knowing your enemy. He wrote that you must "know your enemy and know yourself." We have a president today that nobody really seems to know. He has the left bowing at his feet claiming him to be some sort of messiah. He claims to be a Christian, but every piece of evidence from his Freudian slip of the tongue in an interview where he had to be corrected after he said, "my Muslim faith," to his covering of Christian symbols at Georgetown University before he would speak, to his bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia, to his non-participation in Christian days of prayer, to his honoring Ramadan with a banquet for Muslim leaders, and to his endorsement of the proposed Cordoba Mosque at Ground Zero, leaves very little testimony of any kind of Christian belief. A recent poll found that now 24% of Americans think he is a Muslim.

With his Islamic education as a child in Indonesia, Obama never learned basic American history. He speaks of our Founding Fathers and their values, but he knows nothing about them or their values. He claims Islam had a great part in building America when it had no part. He sounds like his Muslim education was all anti-American. You can't help but wonder if his hidden agenda (his administration has been anything but transparent like he promised) is to introduce Sharia Law into America. He doesn't have the experience to be the CEO of a company or even the principal of a school, but an undiscerning public that had soured on Bush's deficits and his unending war was ready for "change." We're getting change alright.

All it took was for Obama to accuse his opponents of racism when he announced his campaign and well meaning people decided to trust him. Almost immediately after his inauguration Obama began to rule like a dictator with the appointment of unconstitutional czars and in one year tripled Bush's debt, and is well on his way to destroying the US economy. This "summer of recovery" is a total fraud. He tells the public we have to tighten our belts. He tells Republicans to put their money where their mouth is because "next year" he's going to tackle the deficit. Yeah, right! His plan? Raise taxes. The one sure thing that always slows down the economy and causes the debt to rise.

I'm reminded of the old comic strip character, Pogo, a possum that lived in the Okefenokee Swamp, who once famously said, "We have met the enemy and he is us."