Hugh Hewitt links to this article in the NYTimes about military snipers. I suppose it's intended to sicken readers and turn them against the war, but it tells me that our troops have the warrior ethic that it will take to win. Arabs have no compunction about killing Westerners. If their practice of celebrating everything by shooting AK-47s into the air is any indication they don't worry too much about killing other Arabs either. Why does the Times think so many young Muslims are eager for Jihad, which they interpret as killing non-Muslims and apostate Muslims?

When you have enemies willing to throw their own lives away to kill you, you have to be able to accommodate them, with as few losses on your own side as possible. Does this mean Americans are bloodthirsty? By no means. But if you read Victor Davis Hanson's The Soul of Battle, particularly the section about George S. Patton, you realize that all of his bluster about killing was designed to keep his men alive. His insistence on constantly moving and strict discipline all served the same end. It is the timid general, say McClellan in the Civil War, or the unimaginative, like Omar Bradley, or the military idealist, like Robert E. Lee, who waste men's lives in head to head entrenched battles. The true geniuses of war understand first that it is about killing, and soldiers have to accept that, and second that you win wars by keeping your own troops alive and in good shape while killing or wounding more of the enemy.

Snipers are disturbing, not only to civilians, but to other soldiers. They are cold stone killers. They have to be in order to kill with one shot at a range of a mile or more. But they are probably the most humane of forces, because they don't waste ammunition on civilians. They inflict extremely low collateral damage, and scare the hell out of their enemies. I'm glad we have them.