This ran in The Marietta Daily Journal, Marietta, GA as an op/ed at the beginning of the Iraqi war. It has proven to be more than foreboding.

NOW LISTEN UP FOLKS

Alexander I, Czar of Russia, (1801-1825) designed a plan to defeat Napoleon. Faced with an over whelming force of a half million French troops, he knew he couldn’t win in a conventional battle. (He was forced by Napoleon to sign the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807.)

Alexander was humiliated and knew that defeating the invader was his salvation. He pulled the Russian troops out of the area and sent them underground with a promise of generous rewards after the enemy was defeated, if they followed his orders.

Napoleon occupied Moscow and was satisfied that he had won. Once he was settled in, the underground Russian army went to work picking the Frenchmen off one or two or three at a time day in and day out. In 1812 Napoleon left Russia in utter defeat with a fraction of his original army. Granted, a lot of his people perished in the terrible weather and the inability to live off of the local economy. The Russian scorched-earth policy saw to that. (The Russians used the same tactics in WW II against the Nazis.) The Russian army, dressed as peasants, smiled and waved to the French army in the daylight, then cut their throats at night. French esprit de corps plummeted in the field and at home

Now — does that tactic sound familiar in Iraq today? Did Saddam take a page out of Alexander’s book? Saddam is a lot of things, but being an idiot is not one of them. An idiot could not take over a nation of millions of people and hold it as tightly as he did.

Saddam knew from the beginning that he couldn’t defeat the US in conventional warfare. It didn’t take a genius to know that. As long as he is alive, our troops are in grave danger and the situation probably will not stabilize. He must be found and dealt with for what he is.

I am worried about our official attitude on this war. Does anybody care, except those who are destined to be killed? I’m beginning to wonder. We are so busy celebrating a "victory" and politicking to raise money for the next election, that we may not have seen the forest for the trees. Someone had better take a look.

Why doesn’t the opposition, at least, speak out about that situation? Is it because we are all afraid of being relegated to our own version of Siberia? I think that may be a lot of it. Politicians could lose a lot of reelection money by speaking out. That would be Siberia to them. They would have to go to work, so they keep quiet. That’s the world we live in today.

Secretary of State Powell seems to be very uncomfortable parroting the party line. It shows in his face. I believe he would give a lot to get out now.

There are many yellow bellies in our bureaucratic sub structure where self-preservation is paramount, and the national interest comes somewhere down the line behind that, if at all, to them.

I never thought I would live long enough to see this come to pass. If you criticize your own government and work for same, look out. Your days are probably numbered. If you work for industry and say a single word of dissent, that next government contract will be in danger and so is your job.

If you are a member of the another party and criticize the present parties policy, you are politicking, and shouldn’t be taken seriously because of your biases.

That boils the critics down to a very few who are considered to be non-entities because they disagree with the party in power. They are generally considered to be radicals by the yellow-dog followers of the party line. Unless a critic has stature, he or she doesn’t count, and the only way to get stature is through the system. Catch 22.

We must concentrate on finding Saddam and neutralizing him or we are in big trouble. By eliminating the now underground leader, his support will probably evaporate. If not, this war could last a long time. Getting him would be a giant step toward stopping the carnage. Americans don’t understand the mind-set of the Iraqi people. Somebody better start learning.