WAR is about KILLING

The movie Letters from Iwo Jima is a very good movie but it could never have been made during the days of the Second World War; the timing would have been all wrong. During the war we did not want to think of Japanese soldiers as being human beings with wives and families and the things that are shared by all sentient beings. During war the prime objective is to kill the enemy as fast and in great enough numbers to entirely wipe him out...so that there is not a chance of him coming back some day and re- initiating retaliation. Ancient civilizations knew this simple fact. Today we seem to forget what they knew; they knew that you don't want to understand your enemy you simply want to dehumanize him and kill him before he can kill you.

I understand and respect the position of Professor Marc Falkoff of Northern Illinois University but I disagree with his timing and maybe his motivation because I cannot read his mind. During a time of war we cannot afford the luxury of trying to understand and show the enemy compassion; our job is to win and to win the enemy has to be dehumanized and made into a beast that needs to be killed and destroyed. It is difficult to kill a fellow human being if you attribute to him feelings of love of family, wife, children and all the good attributes we attach to humanity. Therefore both sides, in war, dehumanize the enemy so that killing can be made easier and less traumatic to the individual doing the killing; it is not a natural act that comes naturally to most of us but has to be taught and drilled into us...thank God.

I believe that the time for understanding, showing compassion for reading his reflections and poetry is after we have won the War on Terrorism. To do so when we are engaged in it would only weaken our resolve and focus on VICTORY, a word that I did not hear once during President Obama's speech at West Point.