The birth of a War Hawk

"We would LOVE to get out of there forever. But until we take care of business, we can't. Unless however, you want to get hit again. Trust me - the terrorists would love to do it. And now this President, understands that."

Last November, when the voting population decided to elect Donald Trump as our 45th President, many had expectations. Like what he said on the campaign trail. Then a funny thing happened to the forum. Reality set in. Trump surrounded himself with very smart, former four star generals. That is when the Wall Street idealism became tempered with the Helmand Province realism. 

One of the most honest things that Donald Trump has said since taking office, was simply this - (if I may paraphrase a bit), "You don't really understand things until you are sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office." Bravo, Mr. President! You are starting to "get it". This is a crazy mixed up world with a whole lot of moving parts. As a candidate, you understood spit. None of us would. However, with a high level clearance and top level briefings, you now realize how much you really did not know. 

Here is what I am seeing. President Trump, surrounded by his generals will not dither. We tried that for eight years - did not work well. We are now going to war once again in Afghanistan. Not like the past eight to ten years - like the first year or so. General Kelly has some skin in this game. His son was killed in Afghanistan. General Kelly would like us to rid that country of the bad guys. Or as the President said, "We are not going to nation build - we are going to kill terrorists."

For the first time in forever, President Trump is giving our war fighters the "game on" signal. We will attack. We will find you. And we will kill you. My feelings on this? I think this will be Bora Bora all over again. Yes, maybe some more MOAB shock and awe. I do believe that neither Mattis nor Trump want one scratch of wounding on any of our troops. But they do want the enemy to get punched so hard they will come to the negotiation table. We do however - need to punch them to get them there.

Listen up doves. Listen up Anitfa. This is reality. We initially went into Afghanistan only because the terrorists trained there for the 9/11 attack. We would LOVE to get out of there forever. But until we take care of business, we can't. Unless however, you want to get hit again. Trust me - the terrorists would love to do it. And now this President, understands that.