Lessons learned and Applied

"Grandpa, do you have any other reasons for being pro-victory in regards to the war in Iraq?"

Grandpa just smiled as he nodded his head. "Yes, boy, I do. I was pro-victory in regards to the Gulf war when the coalition threw Saddam out of Kuwait and since this war is, in reality, the continuation of that war it would be hypocritical of me to be anything else but pro-victory in this war.

The Gulf war ended in a cease fire agreement not a peace treaty and Saddam violated the terms of that agreement in many ways and many times prior to our renewed military confrontation with him when we invaded Iraq and overthrew his government. And when he did that the cease fire agreement became null and void.

Once the cease fire agreement could be declared as null and void it justified the resumption of the war by any member or members of the coalition who participated in the Gulf war. By the overthrow of the regime of Hussein the Gulf war could be declared as finally won by the coalition forces.

Lessons can be learned from any and every war fought. And those lessons will not only be lessons of tactics but there can be political lessons also. Our continued remainder there can be declared as the result of lessons learned from past wars. One war that we learned from is WW I and the results of that war in regards to Germany. The other war from which we can be declared as a lesson we are applying is the Korean War.

We applied the lessons learned from WW I in WWII when we remained in Germany and Japan even after the war was won. It was the lesson of how we should treat a defeated enemy of war. That lesson being to stay and help the nation to get back on its feet both, politically and most important, economically.

The lesson that can be learned from the Korean war is the lesson of how a war should end, in complete victory. If that end had been sought and achieved two things would be different today, the Koreas would be a nation united under one government now. And in that achievement the United States would have an ally rather than an enemy of the northern section of Korea as it is now. We might also add that we more than likely would see a people who were prospering there instead of a people being starved as it is now in N. Korea.

I might also remind you, boy, that Gen. McArthur was fired by President Truman. And one of the reasons was that McArthur advocated for total victory over the N. Koreans rather than just accepting a cease fire agreement that is in effect there now. Now the world must suffer the consequences of a decision to not apply the principles of war by Truman as they were meant to be applied."

I just noddeed as grandpa finished his explanation but knowing he had fed me fodder for continued research on the issue of the Korean War.