Another nice piece from Steven Den Beste. I think a corollary to this would be something like, when you lance a boil, make sure you get all the infection out. World history since WWII seems to show that when we go to war, it should always be our goal to rid the world of bad regimes. I can understand Truman's reluctance to take on Red China, and possibly the USSR, in the Korean War, but I can't say that it has really made the world much safer or served the Korean people very well. There is usually an individual or small group of butchers at the heart of dangerous regimes. They should be the main target. Trying to conduct limited war is just another word for defeat. In short, we should be very careful and thoughtful before engaging in war but very resolute and thorough in completing it.


Update: Considering what we know about Saddam, I'm for giving the military all the time it needs to get ready. I keep seeing lefties arguing that we can always blow him off the face of the earth if he uses WMDs, which is disingenuous at best, and criminally dishonest at worst. Remember, these people are all in favor of unilateral disarmament, so could we really expect them to support nuking Iraq if Saddam proves as crazy as they don't want to believe he is.