September 28, 2011 THE VILLADOM TIMES II • Page 15 ably waste fewer innocent lives than some of the dumber or more panic-prone ground-pounders sent into dubious battle with a limited education and the kind of background that displaces aggression against anybody who isn’t a blonde football fan. Flag-waving patriots may hate me for saying so, but we have had a lot of wanton murders in these wars along with the combat deaths on both sides, and these have not made us friends overseas. When two or three of your friends have been killed by booby traps while the strange local people smirked or cheered, and while you are having a bad problem with rage or nerves, machine-gunning some of the locals might be a response from angry young men who love their buddies. However, it is also a war crime. Every army has had this problem. That is the point of terrorism. The terrorist masterminds, probably evil but probably not at all stupid, seek to convince better-armed invaders that the whole population is against them. The invading army then retaliates by random shooting of civilians, or in the worst case by organized shooting of hostages, and the invasion becomes so costly that the invaders eventually have to give up. Military analysts understand this perfectly. In May of 1940, when the Germans invaded France, the French met the notorious Panzers with a comparative handful of superior French tanks so well armored that no German anti-tank gun could punch a hole in them. One French tank named “Eures” knocked out 13 first-string German tanks, took 140 hits, and never suffered a hole in its armor. Two others, “Mistral” and “Tunisie,” knocked out 24 light tanks and half-tracks without a loss. Some startled Germans broke and ran at the success of the French Char B and SOMUA tanks, and about 400 Germans were taken prisoner. The British responded by pulling out their air support for the defense of Britain, and the French collapsed. Winston Churchill, before he flew back to England, suggested that the French might like to try guerilla warfare. The French got the message. Their whole population was expendable to save Britain, a country the French never much liked, because guerilla warfare invariably leads to the massacres of civilians who may not be culpable. “We were the senior partner, and when we started to lose, I suppose that the British felt they had the right to be selfish,” the French General Maurice-Frederic Beaufrere, commander of the abandoned French rear guard at Dunkirk, said. “And they were – very selfish.” When General Beaufrere formally surrendered after the last ditch battle that enabled most of his British allies to escape, his captors asked him where all the English were. “They’re in England,” Beaufrere said. Most people don’t want to fight a guerilla war in their own country, but in someone else’s interests. The essence of guerilla warfare is that some guy you didn’t get a good look at kills your buddy, so you kill a half-dozen people who look like him, and if women or kids get in the way – tough. The French saw some of that at Ouradour-sur-Glanes and the Russians and the Chinese and the Yugoslavians saw a lot of it. Whether we win or lose, however, we can’t afford that kind of image for American in a changing world. The drones that avoid a major military presence probably save a lot more lives on both sides than they take. Our guys aren’t there to be targeted by fanatics and lunatics and unemployed would-be patriots on the other side, and they aren’t there to commit war crimes. The sooner we eliminate any major presence of U.S. troops in any country outside of our own, the sooner we stop losing Americans and enraging foreigners who may eventually hate us even more than they fear us. Mexican dictator Victoriano Huerta was once favored by the United States under William Howard Taft because he protected American business interests in Mexico. Huerta was substantially abandoned by Woodrow William because Huerta murdered too many innocent people, including the previous president of Mexico, Francisco Madero, a moderate liberal who was not anti-American. Pancho Villa was, at this time, popular in the United States, and did such a good job of fighting Huerta that Huerta asked Germany for guns in return for petroleum. World War I had not started, so the Western Hemisphere was not threatened by a simple business deal, though Huerta was admittedly not a nice man. When the U.S. got word of a German ship bringing weapons to Mexico, 3,000 U.S. Marines landed in Vera Cruz, stopped the shipment, and killed several hundred Mexicans in the process. In retaliation, Pancho Villa invaded Columbus, New Mexico, killed 17 Americans and lost about 100 Mexicans. Villa became wildly popular in Mexico and widely hated in the United States. The U.S. Army moved in to hunt him down, but he always escaped because the common people in Mexico loved him and agreed with him. Mexico became increasingly pro-German and anti-American at a time when most Americans wanted to stay out of World War I. When Arthur Zimmermann, the German foreign minister, desperately offered Mexico a conditional alliance – valid only if the United States had first declared war on Germany – the United States in fact declared war on Germany. We got into a war that was none of our business, and a great many Mexicans have hated the United States ever since. The 21st century terrorists have declared war on US, with the two attacks on the World Trade Center, one on the Pentagon, and other attacks in Britain and Spain. Giving the deed a name and declaring war on terrorism so murderers can be eliminated by high-tech weapons is a corollary of the illegal attacks on U.S. soil. Maintaining a massive military presence in the Middle East to absorb and inflict casualties is not a war on terrorism: It’s an act of politic jobbery that will ultimately be construed around the world as self-destructive imperialism. Let every terrorist who seeks to kill Americans in their own country know that any aircraft he sees overhead could be carrying a sure-to-hit rocket with his name on it. Let people all over the Middle East know that we’re not aiming at a military takeover of their countries. They need to know that we are not neo-colonialists, and that if they behave themselves, we’ll go away and not bother them anymore. That could be the victorious war where nobody came. What if they gave a war and nobody came? That was the non-battle cry of Vietnam War protestors. With Soviet-style communism now largely defunct, it may be an idea whose time has finally come. The other day, I flicked on the TV hoping for a nice escapist travelogue. Instead, I discovered an old-fashioned debate about ending the war on terrorism. This was a formal debate with two statements from each of the four debaters and a brief rebuttal at the end. Three out of the four debaters had backgrounds in national security, and one was a retired four-star general. They were intelligent, informed, calm people, each conceding that the other side had made a few worthwhile points. At the end of the debate, the people in the audience in the New York University auditorium were asked to vote. Forty-six percent said it is time to end the war on terrorism, 43 percent said that it is not time, and 11 percent said they didn’t know – down from 28 percent who didn’t know before the debate started. The don’t-enders made one telling point. Because the United States is involved in a state of declared war against terrorism, the hit on Bin Laden was an act of retaliation and the Navy Seals who carried it out were not only war heroes, but also within their legal rights. Had there been no declared war on terrorism, they might have been liable for criminal charges because Bin Laden was a civilian who offered no significant resistance and the woman who died with him was also a civilian. No American in his right mind wants to see these brave and skillful Navy Seals charged with a crime for a genuine heroic act and, for that reason at least, the pretext of a declared war on terrorism is legally useful and important. We need to protect our elite service members from any legal consequences of the missions they are sent out to accomplish. If a formally declared war does that, keep it in force. The United States has developed pilotless aircraft that are flown by “pilots” who sit in bunkers on the ground watching screens with images transmitted by cameras in the aircraft. The drones can detect and destroy terrorist leaders simply by tracking their cell phone conversations or through tips from local informers who don’t like them. These drones are almost immune to radar, and, best of all, allow surveillance and optional destruction of selected targets without risking the lives of pilots or manned aircraft. Since the terrorists being killed by these drones are nominal civilians, even though they are conspiring to kill other civilians, we need to confer the same legal immunity on the service personnel controlling the drones that we confer on the Navy Seals who killed Bin Laden. That context, also, makes a declared war on terrorism necessary and important. I understand that some 50-plus philosophers fear that these drones may make killing too easy, too sanitized, and too much like a vicious video game. It’s a worthwhile concern that kids play too many vicious video games, but if the critics had to sit in a foxhole waiting for some villain to slide in and slit their throats, or spent their days defusing bombs, I suspect they would quickly decide drones were cute. There is an added moral concern. “Smart” drones prob- The continuing war where nobody came? Ridgewood Notes Nursery school holds Fall Festival elry, toys, handmade items, and holiday gifts. Food will be on hand. There will also be a Bake Sale. Proceeds from the event will benefit the school. For more information, call (201) 447-6232 or e-mail ridgewoodcoop@gmail.com. HILT sponsors events Dave Smilon, professor of history at Bergen Community College, will discuss the Great Depression at the Oct. 13 meeting of Highlights in Leisure Time. The program will begin at 10 a.m. in the auditorium of the Ridgewood Public Library, 125 North Maple Avenue in Ridgewood. Professor Smilon’s presentation will cover the programs of the 1930s, the WPA, the PWA, and the CCC. He will highlight Bergen County and Ridgewood projects completed under these programs. On Oct. 20, HILT members will travel to Woodloch Pines, located in the northeast Pocono Mountains Lake Region, for an Oktoberfest celebration. Boat rides around the lake will also be available. The bus will depart from Graydon Pool at 8:45 a.m. Boarding will begin at 8:30 a.m. The cost is $40 for HILT members; $45 for non-members. The bus will return to Ridgewood by 6 p.m. (continued on page 21) The Cooperative Nursery School of Ridgewood will hold its 34th Fabulous Fall Festival on Oct. 1 at Graydon Pool in Ridgewood. (Rain date: Oct. 8.) The festival will feature games, pony rides, a petting zoo, inflatables, face painting, and crafts for the kids including sand art and pumpkin painting. There will be musical acts all day including a local band, some of whose members are co-op alumni. There will be over 50 vendors selling jew-