Ralph Peters does an exquisite job demolishing the myth of "immaculate warfare," that oh-so-comforting ideal of wars that will be fought entirely from the air, requiring none of the blood, grime, or ground engagement that's marked combat for generations now. We tried it in Iraq, Israel tried it in Lebanon, and we continue to hope for it in the future. Few myths are as pernicious. The promise of a clean, technology-based decapitation of our enemies lowers the bar our leaders have to pass when arguing for war. Then the conflict inevitably goes awry, and the ground troops sorrowfully enter the battle zone, and we all scratch our heads wondering what went wrong. War remains war. Invasions are a messy undertaking, occupations downright hellish. The sooner America admits that to itself, the sooner we'll stop entering conflicts we're unprepared to finish.
