HOW WARS ARE WON

A DAY AT A TIME:
HOW WARS ARE WON

October 29, 2001 -- Can you believe it? It's been three whole weeks, and America still hasn't won its war on terrorism.
The enemy must be tougher than first thought, no?

Puh-leeze.

From the outset, the only sure thing about this war was that Americans would very soon be asked to doubt their leaders - and themselves.

Now the news is full of stories speaking of how long and tough the war will be - as if anybody who knew anything ever expected it to be different.

Wasn't anyone paying attention when President Bush said last month that this would be a "long struggle" and asked the nation to summon its collective resolve?

"This war will not be like the war against Iraq a decade ago, with a decisive liberation of territory and a swift conclusion," he said in his speech before Congress. "It will not look like the air war above Kosovo two years ago, where no ground troops were used and not a single American was lost in combat."

What kind of war will it be? Bush was honest about that, too: "The course of this conflict is not known," he said.

How could it be?

This is a unique war; the enemy, to put it mildly, is hard to pin down.

The targets of the moment - Afghanistan's Taliban - is battle-hardened and zealous.

The larger foe - Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda and Islamic fundamentalism in general - girdles the globe; it will not easily be defeated.

And certainly, as Bush has noted, this war won't be won with token gestures.

Tokenism was Bill Clinton's strategy.

Every strike by the terrorists was met with a half-hearted response: The World Trade Center bombing in '93. The murder of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia in '95 and '96. The attack on U.S. embassies in Africa in '98. The bombing of a U.S. Navy destroyer last year.

What was Clinton's answer to all that?

An investigation here.

A few cruise missiles there.

Then back to business as usual.

Osama, and al Qaeda, got the message: An attack on America was risk-free.

Bush, thankfully, has promised to pursue a different course. "Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes," Bush said. "Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen."

In form, perhaps. But not in substance. America has been there before.

The road from Pearl Harbor to Toyko Bay was arduous. It began at Midway, then to the Solomon Islands and the Central Pacific and up the Philippine archipelago to Okinawa and on to victory.

In Europe, the American humiliation at Kasserine Pass in North Africa was shrugged off and the painful process of defeating the Third Reich begun: Sicily; Italy; Normandy - eventually, Berlin.

Then came the Cold War - another unique conflict, with hot spots and near catastrophe.

Vietnam - a battle lost in a larger conflict that ended in the dismantling of the Berlin Wall - stands as a textbook example in how not to wage war in an electronic age.

America's leaders need never to promise more than they can deliver. And America itself needs fully to comprehend that victory in this war is going to cost dearly in blood and treasure - here in America, and overseas too.

Not to be too blunt about it, but Americans who are appalled by the results of errant U.S. bombs falling on a Red Cross warehouse in Afghanistan need to take a deep breath and recall the fireballs of Sept. 11.

"They say war is all glory, boys," said Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, "but it is not. It is all hell."

The trick is visiting more hell on them, over time, than they visit on us.

So never mind the Northern Alliance's slow pace in capturing the Taliban-held city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

And never mind the Taliban's execution of one of the opposition leaders, Abdul Haq?

"Tenacious Taliban Cling to Power," a headline on Friday read.

Again, it's been three whole weeks since the bombs began to fall.

Meanwhile, on the home front, morale is even shakier, with daily anthrax-grams fueling national fear.

In truth, the response by officials has been disappointing.

They've delivered misinformation and conflicting messages and vague but alarming warnings that only make matters worse.

Inspiring confidence has not been their strong suit, to say the least.

But, then again, how reasonable would it be to expect otherwise?

America has never confronted this kind of attack before. Not knowing what to expect next, officials are trying to guard against everything - which, to apply an old adage, will leave America guarded against nothing.

Still, the essential game plan makes sense. The top priority: elimination of global terrorism.

Indeed, the terrorists need to be subjected to the same kind of fear to which they've subjected Americans - multiplied by 100.

America needs to be ruthless.

Not because it wants to be.

But because it must be.

The sooner the enemy feels the full extent of America's righteous wrath, the sooner the enemy will succumb.

But, again, the comprehensive victory the world requires cannot be expected to come quickly.

On Friday, Bush repeated his call for forbearance.

"The American people are going to have to be patient . . . " he said. "They're going to have to be determined . . . And with that patience and with that determination, we will eventually smoke [the terrorists] out of their holes and get them and bring them to justice."

Bush noted the danger of letting fear paralyze the nation.

"Franklin Roosevelt warned us 70 years ago that fear feeds on itself and contributes to the very problems that first gave it rise," he said.

"America has prevailed over fear in a Great Depression and in a global war, and we will do so again."

Indeed, courage and resolve are the keys to victory in this war.

Hang in there, America.