The dark side has me today.  The cynical, pessimistic side of me which fears that our nation has not the will to do what must be done to win the war against terrorists.  I am finding myself increasingly doubtful whether we are willing to do what is necessary to secure ourselves against this threat, despite the fact that we have the capability.

     I just finished reading "Lone Survivor," by Marcus Luttrell, the true story of a Navy SEAL in Afghanistan.  Luttrell was, as the title indicates, the only member of a four-man SEAL team to survive a mission behind enemy lines to snipe a highly placed Taliban leader.  Full of bluster and bravado, Luttrell spends a good amount of time chest thumping before getting down to the story of Operation Redwing and how it fell apart.  You can find the book in any store or on Amazon.

     But I'm not here to do a book review.  The thing I took away from "Lone Survivor" is how seriously we have handicapped ourselves in this fight against fanatics who will do anything...anything to defeat us.  And there's the rub.  We will not.  The fatal flaw in Operation Redwing (and Luttrell admits it was his call, and his mistake), was human mercy and fear of the consequences of political correctness.  Luttrell's team, while waiting to observe and then snipe their target, was discovered by three Afghan goatherders.  While not visibly armed, the SEALs fear that the goatherders will report their location to the local Taliban forces, which they estimate to number as many as 200 fighters.

     At this point in the book, I found myself thinking, "these guys are going to have to kill these goatherders."  And indeed that was considered and discussed among the team members.  Both to salvage their mission and to save their own lives, the SEALs consider killing the men who have discovered them.  (Taking them prisoner was not an option, as the goats would linger in the area until someone came looking, and occupy one of the four men needed to complete the mission.)

     So the men discussed killing them, but found the idea distasteful (as most moral human beings would), although they agreed that despite their personal hesitations that it may be necessary.  Then came the discussion of possible consequences.  They saw themselves crucified by the liberal press, happily aided by Al-Jazeera and the like, and branded as barbarian murderers.  They saw themselves prosecuted and imprisoned.

     The result?  They released the goatherders, resigned to taking their chances with the Taliban, realizing it was likely a "lose-lose" proposition.  Indeed, the goatherders reported them, and the Taliban descended on them with full fury.  Three of the four SEALs died in the firefight, and Luttrell was seriously wounded.  He was declared missing in action by the DoD for several days while he evaded his hunters with no means to contact friendly forces in the area.  Sixteen other Navy SEALs and Army special operations aviators were also killed attempting to rescue the team when their MH-47 Chinook was shot down.  Nineteen good men died for fear of killing three goatherders who, though bearing no arms themselves, killed American troops as surely as if they had pulled the trigger themselves.

     Luttrell's tale illustrates with blinding clarity the lack of national will to conduct total war against a brutal enemy who obeys no rules of engagement.  Without the resolve to unleash the full might of the American military against our enemies, we are doomed.  We cannot appease the press, Europe, and the lawyers and succeed in a fight to the death against medieval savages.  If we cannot allow our troops to fight to their full potential, we sentence them to death for the sake of three goatherders.  I fear many, many more will have to die before we can summon the strength to do what is necessary, if we can at all.  Perhaps America's epitaph will at least pay tribute to how considerate we were towards our killers.