Some wars are won with battleships, tanks, and masses of troops. Those wars are the ones that start with tanks or troops. Wars that don't start that way, though, aren't won that way either.
The world wars -- both clashes of massive armies. The first Gulf war -- tanks and planes. The current Iraq mess -- they didn't start with tanks. We brought tanks to a knife fight.
Star Wars. The little X-Wings slipped through the defenses of the Death Star and hit the exposed exhaust port. Sadly, we're acting like the Death Star in many ways. We've got incredible military strength. We can blow up anything we choose.
But the ability to destroy is not going to win this war.
We allied with the British in WW1 and WW2. We're best friends. But during the revolution, they came in like the Big Bad Army and we beat them with a rag-taggy little group of guys with more spirit than training.
Will there be a positive, military outcome to the present conflict in Iraq? Will we one day soon have killed everyone who wants to blow up an American soldier?
Or will someone in Iraq step up and bring harmony? That's what needs to happen.
Like Lord of the Rings. We can try to create an environment in which the right person can step up and solve the problem, but we cannot solve the problem ourselves. We're Aragorn with the big army at the gate. Frodo -- some Iraqi -- needs to take action.
This entry has been a mess of half-developed ideas. I'm refining my own thinking.