Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman famously said, "War is hell."
There's no doubt it is. It's killing on a grand scale, after all, but we've tried many times to tame it just a bit with rules and laws. The laws of war are very real, of course, and they should be followed, if for no other reason than to maintain the moral high ground should the other side opt not to, which happens to some degree in every conflict.
But when news broke of an American submarine taking out an Iranian ship on its way back from taking part in an exercise in India, it was celebrated by those of us who were in the Navy at some point or another, and by a lot of other people.
The Left, though, got upset.
You see, the ship was in international waters and was coming home from an exercise with a neutral country. That means...something, at least to them.
I have no clue what it means, because I have a functional brain, but yeah, this wasn't a horrific war crime.
I'm sorry, but spare me your tears.
War is hell, and it's never going to stop being hell. It's worse, though, when morons on the Left decide that the rules of engagement need to hamstring our men and women in the heat of battle to such a degree that they can't engage the enemy at all until it's too late.
There are people who think war is like a debate society, where you give each side a turn, and what's important is that when the war is over, everyone feels like they did a good job. They view military action like their kids' soccer games, where no one keeps score because little Timmy might feel bad about sucking at sports, rather than an armed conflict that can have existential ramifications for both good and evil.
War isn't about making sure the enemy is in a particular location before you shoot them, or just ignoring combat capabilities because they were doing something not completely evil a week earlier. It's about crushing your enemies, seeing them driven before you, and hearing the celebrations of their newly freed women.
There are those who think the attacks never should have happened.
I get that. I can even see why they feel that way, though I don't share their view on this.
But the best the self-appointed experts on armed conflict will get from me when they espouse nonsense like "international waters" as if that's a shield from being sent to the bottom of the ocean like the IJN Yamato.
This isn't a game of tag where there's a "base" that keeps you safe. This is war, and if you're the enemy, you have two options. Surrender, or let the Navy's torpedomen have some real-world experience sinking enemy ships.
But again, spare me your tears because you think you understand anything about warfare because you watched "Saving Private Ryan" once and couldn't stay through the whole movie because the D-Day scenes made you feel sad.
Some of us have better things to do than pretend you have anything to offer to the conversation.
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