Drones for Libya

CNN is reporting that Defense Secretary Gates confirmed that the US is now using predator drones in Libya on the direct authorization fo president Obama. This is the next step in the drip, drip, drip method of warfare that Obama seems to favor. Under this method, the US adds strength little by little and periodically takes some away as well. In this way, the overwhelming superiority of US forces is never brought down upon the Gaddafi forces. It pretty much guarantees a stalemate.

The simple truth that Obama does not seem to understand or that he does not want to acknowledge is that when the president decides to commit US forces to a battle, he should do so only if he is going to allow those forces to use all means necessary to win. I am old enough to recall the "escallations" in Vietnam, repetative increments to US fighting power that were stretched out long enough to allow the North Vietnamese to recover from each blow and eventually to triumph. Contrast this with the overwhelming force used by the coalition in Kuwait that enabled the US and its allies to oust the Iraqis from Kuwait in 100 hours of fighting. Some day Obama will hopefully learn that war is not something to be discussed in theory in the faculty lounge, but rather it is a terrible ordeal that needs to be fought in a way that will bring it to a conclusion as quickly as possible.