Mindfulness – Page 2 – Lessons from a Stone

My Favorite Quote

Landmark Kitty Genovese Case – Copilot Summary

For as long as I can remember, the above quote has been among my favorites. There is a small sampling of essentially the same message but delivered using slightly different words and arrangements, accredited to a number of authors as the centuries have passed. Note that by the time you get to the last iteration of the quote on this page, that it is credited to “Author Unknown”. “Time waits for no one” is another favorite of mine.

If you take these two favorite, well-known quotes and you then view the Copilot summary just below of what shook the nation to its core, the Kitty Genovese case is one that should have left most Americans to contemplate how they may have responded, had they been there amongst the 38 onlookers bearing witness directly or hearing the horrible spectacle taking place. I don’t care to recall the exact number of times that she was stabbed, but it was some ungodly total. If you look to history for examples, you’ll find that this kind of a good versus evil occurrence is commonplace, but it is rarely as severe as to what took place on the day when Kitty Genovese, a young New York bartender was brutally attacked and killed just outside her Queens, New York apartment. The term “Bystander Effect” was coined by the various psychiatrists who studied the case in detail. Not one individual in the 38 who witnessed the horrid crime did anything to stop it, including making a simple phone call to the closest responding police department.

It happened in 1964, just three years after I was born, but I well remember the case because I took a college level Psych 101 class in 9th or 10th grade and clearly recall the sickening feeling it left in my gut. I could not wrap my young head around the fact that this had been something real and distinctly recall thinking that the story couldn’t possibly be true. It bothered me to such an extent that I still think about it today, some 50 years after first learning about it.

I remember making a promise to myself that I would never sit back and watch something similar occur on what would be “my watch”. It has been my sad experience in going through life and being the only person among others with enough temerity to engage myself in attempting to bring whatever it may have been to a halt and putting an end to things before they’d had the chance to gain momentum. I had put myself in harm’s way somewhere between ten and twelve times before I turned fifty, and was still quite fit and schooled enough in fighting to tip the scales, never sustaining an injury more substantial than a few cuts and bruises, and, the “road rash” that invariably occurs when a fight goes to the pavement. Sure, some torn clothing or a hole in shirt, jacket, or jeans that hadn’t been there just ten minutes before. I have done these things in direct defense of people (family and friends, my daughter, or people that I came across who were (for whatever reason) disadvantaged and incurring the collective wrath of as many as five people bullying that individual who had found themselves alone and surrounded by some really bad people. I have also done these things in defense of myself, outnumbered by people bearing weapons, including guns and knives, in a failed attempt to rob or intimidate me, and during situations where I’ve come across animals who were clearly being harmed. I have never walked away having gotten “the short end of the stick “.

It has been my experience that one man armed only with serious conviction and a determined and dominant way, combined with the knowledge of having good on his side can inflict enough damage that the evil-doers don’t have a chance to respond as a group or, better yet, have a complete change of heart. This is based on the theory that when things quickly turn ugly, individual members of a group tend to lose their “pack mentality” and turn to saving themselves. Further, any group is only as powerful as the individuals it is composed of.

In my 65 years on this planet as an astute observer and a person who is always prepared to “do the right thing” in terms of getting the truly daunting but instantaneous (without warning) things done, I abhor the “turning away from trouble” mentality. I believe that putting ones own safety above that of others has become the default setting for many people but a few of us are born with the instinctive drive to defend and protect (even if it means putting ourselves directly in harm’s way) those who were members of my “tribe” or anyone who was in dire need of help. I believe this is because in our newfound individual anonymity, we no longer belong to tribes or even tightly knit communities and we look to others (such as the brave members of our military or our closest police department) to put their lives on the line on our behalf. Trouble is, when evil shows up unannounced, these warriors cannot be there for us simply because they are nowhere nearby, and therefore, it is up to those of us who feel the “calling” not to turn from it, but to cultivate it. To think various situations through often long before they happen and to train ourselves with the ability to “react” with virtually no time to think and barely enough time to even remotely assess the danger, with the full extent often hidden from view. We are talking about very brief moments in time, usually just seconds. While the masses turn away and help is nowhere to be found, those few of us who carry this primitive urge must do what our instincts and prior experiences tell us to do.

I’m not here to train people on how best to handle themselves. It is fully up to the individual. It is extremely complex and takes years of forethought and personal experience to know what works best for any given person. This is something that you have continually prepared yourself for over the course of your life. If you are youthful and strong, all the better, but that is not the only criteria required for a successful outcome which means only that you brought the occurrence to an end and that you’re able to get up without major injury and walk away all the more wise from the encounter.

Just think about what I’ve said, for it is based on some of the greatest truths of all. We see and hear about people who step-up in these moments and they become immediate celebrities (celebrated people) and almost always are given the label of “hero”. If a particular event is caught on video (which is likely with almost everyone carrying a smart phone and the millions of closed-circuit cameras seemingly stationed everywhere these days) it goes viral. I suppose this is as it should be in modern times, but fame should never enter into the running algorithm maintained in your innermost brain. If you have the greater good in mind, it tends to be of serious interest when we are still young, long before adulthood drags us down with all of its “more important” responsibilities and diversions (like social media and hollow friendships), while we can still discern the differences between who we aspire to be and who we become.

There are roughly eight billion human beings weighing the world down. Don’t you feel a deep yearning to aim higher, not only with the subject at hand, but in the context of every choice you make on your journey through life. We are here but once. By making choices that are steeped in sound values, you will put yourself in a place that when your time is up, you will have lived honorably and are therefore without regret. None of this is intended to motivate people to go out and “look for trouble”. Doing so would result in becoming part of the problem, not part of the solution. I’m simply saying that when and if trouble (bad, evil) crosses your path, do your best to move steadfastly into it with some sort of strategy in mind for getting to the other side, where the problem has transcended from the present and become part of the past.

Back to the Quote

“The only way for evil to exist is if otherwise good men turn away”. Author Unknown

This is my own version of a wordier quote that delivers the same message. It has been used in a variety of forms for centuries, so I am comfortable with using fewer words to deliver precisely the same message. Originally thought to have been written for JFK (I’ve also read FDR in a speech made during WWII) and a preacher at the turn of the last century, then traced to the 1800’s to Sir Edmond Burke, but there are references which precede biblical times. Versions of it have been found in the works of classical literature and both Roman and Greek philosophers coined their own.

I’ve spent hours digging into the subject myself and was unable to find any single source. In my opinion, it’s such a basic concept (Good versus Evil) to ponder that I don’t believe there is just one author. So I took the liberty of using “Author Unknown”.

Kelpy Reconnoitering Hermosa Canyon

Originally Posted on Quora

Circa 2008 Canon G-10

My beloved Australian Kelpie, “Kelpy”, as named by my then six year-old daughter. Kelpy and I were spending the 2013 archery elk season (end of August through end of September) in our favorite place, up high in the “Middle of Nowhere”, Southwest Colorado. Our camp was just 30-feet behind where this picture was taken.

What Advantages Might Adults Have Over Learning to Play Guitar at an Early Age?

Originally Posted on Quora

I’m glad someone (or something) finally got around to asking this very question. I don’t believe in the theory that starting anything that requires a lengthy and difficult learning curve is iinherently easier if begun at an early age. While the theory has been around forever, it has also been riddled with holes. The further back we step in time, the more value can likely be assigned to the theory, but our youngest of generations are very different from those who were in the same place forty or fifty years ago. Time has steadfastly moved forward but it could be argued that our young are not learning commensurately with the speed of change. The requisite skill sets have not kept up with the complexities involved in moving today’s ball down the field. It is my belief that getting started early, whether at guitar or any musical instrument, offers only the opportunity to have more combined time to learn over the course of a given lifetime and become highly accomplished at a relatively younger age – given the same amount of learning time.

For me, in particular, once I retired and made the conscious commitment in time and resources to become a solid player of both the electric and acoustic guitar, I knew precisely what I was signing up for. I’ve been at it, in earnest, for fifteen years now. Granted, I have been consciously proactive in living healthy and remaining active to mitigate the inevetable aging process and learning to play guitar is one of the things I subscribed to those fifteen years ago, to keep my brain functioning at the same level, if not higher, than I found it, awash with exhaustion and burnout from a demanding career in large project engineering.

But, after engaging in some smart things to remain smart, I recovered and have gone on to spend this period of my life working on my “creative side” by taking up writing to augment the guitar playing (on average, I play for sixteen hours a week and dedicate about the same number of hours to writing. I spent about an hour a day reading about things that interest me, which does not include the news or current events. I could say that my life post-retirement life has, almost to a fault, has been about learning. I do not recall having the wisdom to thoroughly “apply myself” at a much younger age. Since I’m sure that I’m not alone with having such a midlife epiphany, this would mean that our learning process takes years to develop and (prodigies aside) learning difficult things when we are very young comes far more organically than we’re constantly informed.

I cannot speak to childhood prodigies who, almost as if by magic, are fortunate enough not only to have some sort of major proclivity at something, but who have someone they’re close to be aware of it and point them in the right direction. And, I can only speak to learning guitar as my instrument of choice, but, just like anything else, there is a range when it comes to prodigies. I think it is safe to say that it they’re surrounded by music, perhaps dad is a lead guitarist for a very good local band and mom teaches piano, and, between them they have a large music collection from which to listen and play to, then any offspring they might have is invariably going to have a leg-up on the local competition. Perhaps prodigies are not so much born as such as they are steeped in a musical environment that gives them wings at an early age. I suspect that it’s nearly equal parts of having their brains wired a certain way at birth and soaking in that musical cookpot set swaying over a gentle fire. Again, I do not know enough on the study of childhood prodigies to fully comprehend the mechanisms behind it. But if we limit the conversation you young prodigies getting an early start, then of course they hold the vast majority of players starting at any age at a complete disadvantage. But these tiniest of tiny circumstances have little to do with my overall comparison.

This has all been leading somewhere because, at least for me, I don’t think I would be any farther along in my playing, if, say I began at 12 and was now 27, as opposed to my actual age of 64, with the same 15: playing years under my belt. I would put my own ability to think and learn up there with any of the younger people I meet. And, it’s not just me. I’d bet my last dollar that my 55 year old aerospace engineering wife could be counted on for the same thing, as could many of my professional friends of a similar age. I would guess that there are many middle -aged people who feel precisely the same way. As I’ve said, the cross-section of young people of today is simply not the same as those of the same age bracket three generations ago I see on a regular basis that without their smartphones, they are ill-prepared to supply answers to even the most rudimentary of questions, let alone have the thinking and, therefore , learning ability (and mental discipline) to take on something as daunting as learning to play a musical instrument.

The question asks “Why might adults have an advantage over younger people when learning a new instrument, like the guitar?”. My shorter answer is that adults have myriad advantages over younger people at learning many things, and they’re not confined to learning how to play a new instrument. If a child never learns strong “thinking” abilities (this takes years) they will be forever disadvantaged when it comes to “learning”.

Accountability: For the Sake of Itself

It’s no secret how popular climbing Everest has become. Here’s a few statistics to digest before tearing into the story. I know, there are two different figures shown for “Successful Climbs”. What do you expect for AI?!

I just got done watching “Dying for Everest”, a 2007 documentary based on double amputee Mark Inglis’s triumphant summit bid on Mount Everest and the existential happenings during that climb.

Starting at a relatively young age, Inglis had been a professional mountaineer and member of an alpine rescue team based in his home country of New Zealand. He was already a gifted and highly experienced mountaineer when he spent twelve days on New Zealand’s Mount Cook, after being caught high on the mountain with his partner in an extended blizzard before they were finally rescued. As a result, severe frostbite brought an end to his legs and feet (from the knee down). While undergoing a brutally painful and lengthy rehab, he was fitted with prosthetics and began the long road back to seeking adventure.

Fast forward to the mid-2000’s when Inglis made the decision to be the first double amputee to reach the summit of Mt. Everest and went about joining an experienced team, several of whom had summited Everest on two or more occasions and were old friends. Anymore, most people are familiar with Everest, the tallest of the world’s 8,000 meter peaks at over 29,000 feet ASL (Above Sea Level) and the endless stream of climbers of all ability levels who make the attempt each climbing season (lasting just a few months). From both an ecological and spiritual standpoint, the mountain is truly under siege. Strewn everywhere are non-biodegradable trash such as plastic water bottles and used oxygen cylinders from around base camp at 17,000 feet to the furthest reaches of the mountain, a testament to the thousands of people who have attempted the climb. Only a fraction have made it safely to the summit and the return cimb down.

Inglis and his team which included a climber known as “Cowboy” who had designed and fabricated Inglis’s highly specialized climbing legs were well funded and well prepared, enough so that they were able to contribute $80,000 to a charitable group that involves amputees. The team had ample media coverage commensurate with covering such a huge human interested story. I can recall the ferver surrounding the climb as the date closed in. There aren’t many “firsts” remaining on Everest or, for that matter, in mountaineering, adventure or extreme sports, discovery, or exploration in general. The turn of the twentieth century and the twenty years on either side were banner times with the races for the poles, polar travel, arctic and antarctic attempts and crossings. It seems that “firsts abounded”. We even made it into space by the late 1960’s. Everest is not considered the most difficult of the 8,000 meter peaks. Though they are seldom used, there are far more difficult routes on the mountain than the one taken by probably 99% of the people attempting the climb. In comparison, K2 has an unbelievably low success rate coupled with the highest death rate which is one in every four climbers. With that in mind, it’s all but inconceivable that people attempt it at all. Imagine being a father or mother and having your adventure seeking husband or wife inform you that they’ve made their decision and will be joining their team of three or five others to climb K2 during the next climbing season. In the 1970’s with the world’s climbing community saying it was impossible to do Everest without oxygen, a forty year old debate, German-Italian Reinhold Messner, one of the all-time best mountaineers not only proved them wrong once, but twice while taking one of the most difficult, but direct routes up the mountain unaided by the use of oxygen. These were feats that went unchallenged until a super-climber named Ed Visteurs repeated it sometime in the early 1990’s. So, attempting to climb Everest while being a double amputee would garner a lot of press and the climb was followed by millions.

The rest of this story isn’t so much a chronicling of Inglis’s remarkably successful climb (much has been written about the endeavor), but something that occurred along the way to the summit and its aftermath. There is a point on the mountain (generally described as being over the 26,000 foot mark) above which is considered the “Death Zone” and it is thought by all to be the most dangerous aspect where an individual climber can spend only so much time within that space and the summit, on the way both up and down. This includes spending time trying to get some windblown rest at Camp 5, perched precipitously several thousand feet below the summit. There is absolutely no margin for error including ailments such as cerebral edema which happens when the blood no longer carries enough oxygen to the brain. If it goes untreated for even a full day or two, it can lead to certain death. The primary treatment for getting someone who is suffering its ill effects is getting them down to a much lower elevation, as quickly as possible. Once at basecamp, the symptoms wii disappear on their own, that is, unless more permanent damage to the brain has already occurred.

Many climbs have ended for entire teams so that the life of one of the members can be saved in an all-for-one effort to get that team member back down the mountain. Working as fast as possible, with the death zone surrounding them, often leads to more than just the one casualty. None of the climbers have their wits about them. Some more than others, but any kind of injury is made exponentially worse simply by being that high up on the mountain. Often a climber will stop to rest for what was supposed to be just a few minutes and when they try to get up and move on, they find that they can go no further.

What many people aren’t prepared for is the area known as Green Boot Cave named after a dead Japanese climber whose green mountaineering boots are still quite visible wrapped around his feet. There are some ten or eleven other dead climbers from ill-fated expeditions in the past couple of decades whose frozen bodies decorate this part of the mountain. At that elevation, it takes decades for bodies to even begin to decay, but, since they are no longer of this world, even their own climbing buddies elect to leave them on the mountain rather than risk becoming another casualty in an attempt to haul these bodies all the way back to base camp. But in the moment that Inglis and his team were passing through this frozen battlefield, there was another body in the crack in the rock, a body which was still moving ever so slowly and trying to speak, Inglis’s team stopped for enough time to decide that there was nothing they could do for him. The stricken climber was all but gone and that was the consensus amongst the team members. Throughout the day and into the night, an estimated 30 other climbers passed the man, many without knowing he was still clinging to life. Sad to say, but even if a rescue effort had taken place now, it is highly unlikely that anything could have been done for the severely frost bitten and nearly braindead climber. From the various accounts, it is all but certain that he would have been brain dead and incapable of surviving the grueling trip down the mountain. Too much time had lapsed in a place where there is no time.

By the time the story had been picked up by the media and reached the world, the public outcry was merciless and, because Inglis’s story was already being covered heavily, the story became a story within a story and Mark Inglis and his team were being blamed for the death. Judgement wasn’t nearly has harsh within the climbing community even though the mountaineering world is traditionally unforgiving and harsh when it learns of mishaps that were largely due to poor judgment, they knew that this wasn’t one of those occurrences. This case of death high up on a Himalayan mountainside was scrutinized by a general public that knows absolutely nothing about the conditions these climbers face at such extreme altitudes. Inglis’s “trial by fire” was not conducted by an objective judge and a jury of his peers. When mountaineering accidents happen, people from both inside and outside the mountaineering community want answers and above all, they want to see real accountability. But this was extremely hurtful to Inglis who’s only real crime was being there after the crime had already been committed. Where was this climber’s team? Ostensibly, having left their comrade behind, they were off chasing the summit. Though there were several teams in that general area at the time, it is difficult to get a straight story. Again, each of these climbers wouldn’t have been functioning at their normal levels, mentally or physically. Many were simply mute or mumbling, in a hurry to keep moving toward the summit with the primary goal of summiting and getting back down below the death zone.

When looking at the full measure of accidents and catastrophic events that have occurred on Everest over the last thirty years, it is clear that there are too many climbers on the mountain at almost any given time. And, at just a few months, the climbing season is very short. I can imagine sitting in a small Tibetan cafe and “feeling” the eyes upon me from the people who have lived for centuries in the shadow of this great peak and be viewed as another clueless American who has come to desecrate their most holy of religious and cultural places. Perhaps a mother of a Sherpa who lost his life trying to make a living for his community by ferrying loads for the thousands of foreigners just passing-through each climbing season. On the other end, you’ve got a huge cloud of pressure that resides over the mountain and everyone who travels so far from home and family to pay their $50K to one of the many guiding operations with the unspoken promise of getting them up the mountain. For most, just arriving at base camp is the culmination of saving money and getting physically and mentally prepared for years. If they don’t end up among the fortunate climbers who summit and make the even more hazardous trip down to complete the climb, many are willing to literally die trying. They understand that this is the downside of what they signed-up for. With that level of commitment and focus on a dangerous goal, self imposed or otherwise, you can picture the amount of collective angst that is on Everest every single day of each climbing season. I’ll venture that it’s nothing short of being palpable. No matter how well prepared your typical Everest climber might be, there are few things in ordinary, day to day life that prepare them for that kind of pressure. As the numbers have steadily risen, there are fewer and fewer climbers that have the experience or wherewithal to even step into base camp. But at roughly $50K per climber, there is big money at stake and many people simply talk their way onto a climb.

It’s not like the route taken is difficult. It is the easiest way to get people up and down the mountain and is a predominantly well-marked and maintained path interspersed with a number of quasi-technical features to best along the way. But it is not for the faint of heart. It is the sheer number of climbers that has become the greatest challenge (and hazard). During a Camp 5 to summit,-push, there may be eight, or more, teams of six to twelve climbers vying for very limited space the entire way up and down. In most places, there is a single path to be taken with invariable “log jams” occurring in places like the “Hillary Step”, a moderately technical section of the route that spells mishap for numerous climbers each year. When looking down from this vantage point, there is a seemingly endless stream of people that have been forced as if like cattle from a herd into a confined, singlefile corridor. If you stumble or fall, you’re causing an undesirable stoppage. Now picture people of all abilities from guides and those who may already have summited four or five times to work-from- home gym rats or even a celebrity or two. This all makes for a day in the life of a climber on a push for the summit, typically a sixteen to twenty hour stint when finally getting back into Camp 5.

Additional pressure builds during instances where a storm is on its way (this happens often and accounts for many bad decisions) and climbing against the greatly reduced time allotment pushes many people beyond their ability to cope with the added physical and mental strain. Perhaps they’re feeling the effects of altitude sickness, are already running low on their oxygen appropriation for the day. Or, their guide who senses that a particular climber isn’t up to the task at hand has to make the never enjoyable but hugely important decision to send them down along with another guide to ensure their safety during the long and hazardous trek back to base camp. The team leader will now become the one and only guide. If the weather holds, only a fraction of those who began their summit push in the wee hours of the morning, in the pitch black darkness of this other-worldly mountainscape, wiill summit that day. It is one of the single most difficult 24 hour periods in all of sports.

Inglis summited and spent a bit of time at the top. By the time he reached Green Boot Cave hours later on the now dark trail, the stricken climber would be no more. By the time the world heard the story, it was apparent that Inglis had been singled out from the thirty-two other climbers who were there that tragic day on Everest. In fulfilling his double -amputee dream, his story was the best one for the media to latch onto and embellish. It took considerable time for the “Trial by Public Opinion” to calm (months ) and sift fact from fiction. Numerous climbers had been informally interviewed upon returning to basecamp and it seemed that with each telling, there was a different story. But there were ample similarities, perhaps, the most important of which was that not a single climber had assigned a speck of blame on Inglis as it related to any other climber or the whole of the ignominious failure to do “the right thing”, as the world would perceive the dilemma. To comprehend what occurred (or didn’t occur) on the mountain that day, it is of paramount importance to remind ourselves that the accident happened in Everest’s”Death Zone”, a place where no one on earth could still be 100% in control of their mental faculties. It was later found that many of the climbers who passed the body that day either thought it was dead just like the other bodies they’d come upon, or didn’t see him crouched in the crack (“cave”) right next to the long-since frozen Japanese (“Green Booted”) climber.

I don’t think many of us understand the motivation behind trying to have immediate closure to some sort of tragic mystery, particularly when it involves a dead body or a person who seemingly vanished from the face of the earth, but, as we’ve all seen on TV shows like long-aired CSI, rushing to judgement rarely turns out well, especially for those persons who initially appeared to be a primary suspect or person of interest. Their lives have almost invariably been changed for the worse even after being formally ruled-out of an investigation or exonerated. It was no different for Mark Inglis whose only crime was being a celebrated person for having the intelligence, grit, and determination we all wish for but never seems to find us. It can only come from knowing the darkest of places and having the temerity to wriggle back out and never, ever throw in the towel. To attack him personally and professionally for what happened that day was wrong and the people who never went so far as to find out what really happened before pointing the finger own him one huge apology. I hope he one day gets it, at least a modicum of it.

Tibetan Prayer Flags Against an Everest Backdrop Credit Shutterstock

Turn the other cheek”/”Fight fair” are uniquely Christian doctrines. Why are we surprised that neither Jews nor Muslims fight their wars in ways that we would not?

Originally Written for Quora

Given that the subject has to do with something as important to world history as religion, some fact-checking should probably have taken place.

The history of mankind making war on itself goes back to the dawn of primordial man.. But since the question limits the discussion to the beginning of Christianity, a concept that’s only been in existence for a little over 2,000 years, we’ll focus on that period of time alone. In the history of war the concepts from the title of this post (“Turn to other cheek”, “fight fair”) are hardly the centuries old words of Christians alone. They are among the underpinnings of many peaceful societies and religious tenets that can be found in many other forms of religious scripture, including that of Buddhists, Muslims, and, Islamists who worship peace at their core. Unfortunately, it is the “extremists” and their warring predilections that people judge entire religions on, solely on the deluded actions of a relative few. Scandinavian based societies tend to value peace and the freedom to practice that peace and tranquility over anything .

The Roman Catholic Church has been called the bloodiest of all institutions where, in the name of god, its soldiers have been every bit as brutal as any of its enemies over the history. The rapid growth of Christianity came as a result of violent periods such as the Crusades followed a couple hundred years later by Colonialism. Christian armies for various European countries were feared greatly by the indigenous people who may have peacefully occupied these little corners of the world for centuries. These are examples of things we are rarely taught accurately as children being educated in the country of ours. Other periods in history where Christian armies roamed far and wide, conquering lands and people along the way, the Spanish occupation of Central America, and the 200 years it took European Americans to subjugate Native American people, one tribe at a time.

I don’t have time to dive into this question farther, so I’ll end by saying that, during times of war, the rules of engagement invariably change the longer and more deadly the given conflict. This leads to more and more aggressive tactics by the warring parties involved . As is the case today, there are often more than two sides fighting a given war at a given time. We have lost two major conflicts in the last seventy years in part because we weren’t aggressive enough and allowed politicians, not career military men, to decide the protocols of modern warfare. The North Vietnamese could handle the brutality and length of that war while the US never truly committed. The same could be said of Afghanistan and every engagement we’ve had in the Middle East over the last forty+ years. The lesson of going halfheartedly into another country thousands of miles distant, into lands indigenous peoples have been warring over for centuries, and expecting to win and restructure those countries to our liking is ludicrous. Go in with the full weight of our technology and soldiers and we have the capability to win, every time. This is the way war works and, unfortunately, if your goal is to win, it’s time to commit fully and remain fully committed until the job is done, all-the-while being every bit as brutal as your enemies.