It only takes one enemy

In the lead up to the war in Iraq, political figures in Washington were calling for "victory" in the "War on Terror." I responded to these statements as being misleading and unrealistic. The victory being described would only be possible if the war was fought as conventional warfare, ending with a complete surrender of enemy forces.

The enemy forces were comprised of different religious and political groups. There was no single leader or single force to surrender to us, and if there was no one to surrender to us there could be no classic victory. The only way for war to end would be to kill every member of the enemy force. Those with any knowledge of history will know that this latter end has never happened in any war the U.S. has fought. It is simply unrealistic. As long as there is one wacko willing to die in order to kill innocents there will be terrorism.

Recent terrorist attacks in the U.S., France, and in other nations have been conducted by small groups or by individuals willing to die as they accomplish their attacks. Anti-terrorism experts and intelligence experts agree that intercepted communications are the best way to identify terrorist groups before they act. So-called lone wolf or individual supporters of terrorist goals cannot be identified if they do not communicate with others. In fact, ISIS has called for supporters to act on their own and conduct terrorist actions using whatever weapons are available. The most extreme example of this so far is the use of a large truck by a single individual to kill 84-plus people and injure over 200 in Nice, France.

A few politicians have called for military action to win the "War on Terror". Conventional military action may be successful when terrorist forces mass, but how will our military forces stop these lone wolf attackers here in the U.S.? The simple answer is they cannot. We must rely on intelligence gathered from the public, and we must rely on law enforcement to find and stop these threats.

Politicians may set goals, but when they dictate tactics and how to conduct military operations they invariably fail. History has shown those failures have cost too many military casualties without successes. Give the military a realistic mission, and stop the management of war by politicians.

Jack Dragoni attended Boston College and served in the U.S. Army in Berlin and Vietnam. He lives in Chaffee, Missouri.