I spent the last week traveling from Valley Forge PA to Ft. McHenry VA. On day 1 I started at a place where it was unsure whether the American movement for independence would survive to where it was made evident that we could thrive. Imagine then my frustration and surprise to read today that powerful UN officials, law enforcement gurus, et al., think we should surrender in the war on drugs because it hasn't stopped drug use. What kind of a world would we have if others adopted that attitude?
Things have frequently looked bleak for the side that eventually prevailed. At Valley Forge, Washington was worried. At the Battle of Britain, Churchhill had to buoy up the British people to take courage. Until Eugen of Savoy stopped the Mongols at Moedling, Austria, it wasn't evident whether the Mongols could be stopped. You find out the strength of the Wehrmacht by resisting it, not by capitulating when it approaches.
In Otto Carius' memoir "Tigers in the Mud", he talks about German tenacity. People asked him why the Germans fought so hard against the Russian push into Germany. He wrote that it was to protect as many of their people from the Russians as possible in hopes that the other Allies would take as much of Germany as possible. They threw everything they had against a menace in order to trade it for a nuisance.
People who surrender things they do not feel they can do run the risk of doing nothing whatsoever. A chinese proverb states that he who thinks something cannot be done should not interrupt the one doing it. Everyone once thought it impossible to circumnavigate the globe, stop Napoleon's inexorible march, and break the sound barrier. Analysts also thought gold would peak at $1000/oz. Since the dark ages, men have done many things once thought impossible.
They did not achieve by listening to those who preached surrender. They won because they were disciplined. As for myself, I will fight against what is unacceptable to me until I have no other choice. I have to live with myself 24/7, and if I compromise on myself, then I am the only one to blame.
Many of the men I admire are people who stood for what was right. You don't ever get what you hope to achieve by giving up. Sometimes, you have to change your strategy and outflank your opponent, but if you give up, you can never win.
Wars require that the people who start them define achievable objectives and a means to measure progress. In normal wars, that's easily done by measuring changes in the front line. So maybe it hasn't stopped drug use completely, but what has it done? Also, if your objective is to end something wicked for all time, that displays a fundamental misconception of human nature. These kind of people expect of humans something that is completely foreign to them.
If you really aim to change what happens to, with, and among humans, you start by affecting human nature. The war on drugs is really nothing more than people swatting at the mold growing on the leaves growing on the tree of evil. A winning strategy goes after the root, where we find all the strength of the problem. In this, they are correct- they cannot win by swatting at the leaves of evil, and it's best to surrender that strategy.
We can win. Give us the right objectives, tactics, and equipment, and let us raise up the next generation when it is young in the way it ought to live. Hold people accountable. When they know we will follow up, they will follow through.
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