Tuesday, December 22, 2015

The Greatest Generation Had No Use for Nuance

Let's try to imagine Hillary Clinton in 1944, prior to D-Day, arguing against sending American combat troops into France to defeat Nazi Germany:

I think that what we're facing with Nazi Germany is especially complicated. It was a different situation in the Pacific. We were attacked from Japan. The carrier strike force was based in Japan. We went after those who had attacked us.

What's happening in France and Europe is that, because of the failures in the region, including the failure of the prior government in London, led by Chamberlain, there has been a resurgence of fascist activities, as exemplified by the Nazis. And we have to support French Resistance and British forces against the Nazis, because I believe it would be not only a strategic mistake for the United States to put ground combat troops in, as opposed to special operators, as opposed to trainers, because that is exactly what the Nazis want.

They've advertised that. They want American troops back in Europe. They want American soldiers on the ground fighting them, giving them many more targets, and giving them a great recruiting opportunity.

So, I think it's absolutely wrong policy for us to be even imagining we're going end up putting tens of thousands of American troops into France and Europe to fight the Nazis.
Yeah, it could have gone that way.

If ISIL is our enemy, why rule out ways to kill them? For God's sake, it is not counter-productive to destroy them, defeat them, pursue them, and kill every last damn jihadi.

And I'm sure she would have thought calling it Operation Overlord was insensitive, as well.