America, Iraq, and the question of total war

If the war in Iraq is really worth fighting, then America should fight with everything it's got.

By John Dillin

from the April 12, 2007 edition

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Washington - Omar Bradley, an American general in World War II, observed: "In war there is no second prize for the runner-up." In a similar vein, the legendary Gen. Douglas MacArthur cautioned his fellow Americans: "It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it."

Despite such warnings, America's political leaders today – in both the White House and Congress – have waged the war in Iraq as if defeat were acceptable. One wonders why.

Although the United States has sustained more than 3,000 battle deaths and has spent billions of dollars in Iraq, the nation's overall fight against Saddam Hussein and his successors has been marked by hesitation and half-steps.

That's how wars are lost.

The Allies won WWII against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan with an all-out effort and resolute orders from the top. President Franklin Roosevelt called for "total war" on the Axis powers. He demanded "unconditional surrender."

Are America's current leaders that tough?

The meaning of 'total war'

Roosevelt's reference to "total war" was not mere rhetoric. Total war means everything belonging to the enemy is a potential target – their factories, their cities, even their civilians. With clear orders from Roosevelt, generals such as Dwight Eisenhower and George Patton knew what to do. They obliterated Germany's and Japan's will to fight. The cost was high, including hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths in the Axis homelands.

In 1945, total war led to the firebombing of Dresden, Germany, by some 3,000 British and US planes. An estimated 135,000 Germans, mostly civilians, were killed. Within days, other US bombers launched similar raids that created a firestorm in Tokyo that killed nearly 84,000 Japanese and wounded 40,000 more. A few months later, US planes dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

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