Musings of a Dumb Ass

Musings of a Dumb Ass...... I have this unshakable belief that we humans in general are very simple creatures. We don't particularly like that assessment, but it is so. When we complicate anything or any issue to the point that we create options that require 'out of the box' thinking we are at our happiest searching for the hidden and making room for the unlikely rather than look at the simple. This whole damned world after 9-11 has left me flummoxed. At no time have I seen logical thinking and reasonable action since that day. Instead we've acted like fools and hens in a chicken house. I've been unable to put a finger on the reason for our military failure in Iraq. Reasonable thinking will bring you to the conclusion we have been defeated in every way. We have been unable to secure the country, we've been unable to bring anything there under control, we've been unable to win the hearts and minds of the people there, we've been unable to establish anything resembling an effective authoritative government in Iraq, we've shown no ability to rebuild any of the damage incurred in our invasion. We are unable to provide safety even for the Americans there civilian or military and have in fact been beaten into near hiding in what we call 'the green zone' in the nations capital of Baghdad. Outside of that very small area we're sitting ducks for those we can't identify and die daily just driving down the road. All this comes after an invasion that displayed the most awesome, effective, and accurate war toys in the history of the art of warfare. We just blew everything we aimed at all to hell and spared what we wanted to without a mark on it. All this was done basically before the troops arrived on the streets. Perhaps this is the problem with modern day warfare. We just ain't killing enough. Opposing armies that traditionally engaged the invaders fought and killed each other without directly including civilians, except for the Germans and Japs in WW2., they just killed everybody. That's all changed with technology and entire countries are now decimated with minimal loss of life. Israel is now the Kings of brutality and their air assault on Lebanon is being described by many as being uneffective and some even think a failure. Probably because they can't find an opposing army to engage and are reduced to just killing civilians. They too seem to have arrived at this modern day dilemna of warfare. You just can't kill enough civilians to satisfy the thirst for power, and if there's no army to kick the ass off of, how do you ever have a cease fire or sign a peace treaty? How do you know if you've won? If there are no powers in officialdom to surrender how do you know when to stop? Simplicity is powerful..... and scary.................