“First, we’re gonna cut it off, and then we’re gonna kill it.”
With that brief, bold statement describing what was about to happen to the Iraqi army at the beginning of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell conveyed to the American people that the United States had learned the lessons of Vietnam.
Those under his command had a well-defined mission and were going to execute it, quickly and efficiently. It was a memorable turn of phrase made more powerful by the damage the American psyche had suffered in the post-Vietnam era.
While history is now questioning the geopolitical events that war set in motion, unquestioned is the dispatch with which Gens. Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf trounced the Iraqi army and its once-fearsome Republican Guard.
Now that we are in the post-Obama/Biden era, I suggest a reprise of that…
