Rules Of Engagement

I've been seeing pictures of the Taliban at a funeral and heard reports that we could have taken a large group of them out all at once. The reports tend to state that we opted not to take them out due to them being at a funeral in a cemetery. The reports go on to state that we have higher ethical and moral standards in the way we are waging war. My initials are BS, so I know it when I hear it.

Your enemy sets the rules of engagement in any conflict. Being the nice guy doesn't win a war. We can still be the good guy, but we don't always have to be the nice guy. When our enemy is filming the beheading of civilians and killing their own people to try to incite a civil war, they are throwing any rules of war out the window. When your enemy's goal is your destruction at all costs, including strapping bombs to kids and offering rewards to families for doing so, there are no rules in how to engage them.

Our goal is the destruction of our enemy. We must find, capture, and kill our enemy at every available opportunity. This means that if we catch them at a funeral, we take them out. If we catch them on the toilet, we take them out. That is the rule of engagement with this enemy. Anything less only costs us lives.

We may want to be seen around the world as the nice guy, but I'd rather be the good guy and rid the world of terrorism. The old saying is that nice guys finish last. I want to win this war as do most in our country. Peace follows victory. We must secure victory.