{"id":921,"date":"2005-06-27T23:10:14","date_gmt":"2005-06-28T04:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=921"},"modified":"2005-06-27T23:14:45","modified_gmt":"2005-06-28T04:14:45","slug":"the-will-to-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/?p=921","title":{"rendered":"The Will to Fight"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of my primary motivations to begin blogging was to provide another voice, however meek or hushed, as a counter to the defeatism and anti-military nature I saw in our mainstream media. Few may hear me and, of those that do, some may dismiss me as a paranoid hawk. I’ll accept the hawk title, though you can keep the oft-attached neocon garbage — the history of that word does not apply to my beliefs. I sharply renounce the paranoid aspect, however, as history is on my side. The media have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory before, specifically during and after the Tet offensive<\/a> of early 1968. My study of Tet and the subsequent media fallout sickened me back in college during a survey-level military history course, and that feeling has certainly continued and seeped over into this blog. One might say Tet has almost become a central theme<\/a> here at Target Centermass.<\/p>\n

It’s my continued hope that the blogosphere, through such efforts as Chrenkoff<\/a>‘s regular “Good News from Iraq” features and especially the MilBloggers<\/a>, can provide enough of a counterweight against the media to allow American efforts to prevail. Sometimes, that hope is bouyed.<\/p>\n

Greyhawk<\/a>: Americans Dissatisfied With Press Coverage of the Military<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In his very next post, Greyhawk points us to two other MilBloggers, one of which previously unknown to me, who clearly demonstrate why sometimes my hopes wane.<\/p>\n

Blackfive<\/a>: How To Lose A War<\/a><\/p>\n

Neptunus Lex<\/a>: Could We Lose?<\/a><\/p>\n

I’ll be honest: I understand what the media, as a whole, is trying to do but, for the life of me, I cannot understand why. There is no way that a victory for the jihadists currently carrying much of the weight of the onslaught against a free Iraq, a defeat for America, and a dooming of a fledgling Arab democracy could spell a better world. Such a result could only lead us down one of two paths — either the resulting next war is fought by us in a far less humane manner or the next war isn’t fought at all, much to our future detriment. And we retreat. And the radical Islamists spread. I really don’t understand the hopes of the members of today’s media when, truly, the lives and freedoms of their grandchildren hang in the balance.<\/p>\n

As for me, I’ll keep working and hoping to add to the chorus of counter-voices. Or maybe I’ll go back to work another way. Hey, I hope to have grandchildren, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of my primary motivations to begin blogging was to provide another voice, however meek or hushed, as a counter to the defeatism and anti-military nature I saw in our mainstream media. Few may hear me and, of those that do, some may dismiss me as a paranoid hawk. I’ll accept the hawk title, though […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-media","category-war-on-terror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}