Go versus Chess

I'm sure most of the readers here know what the game of chess is. The Asian game of go is on a playing board with black and white stones. I've never played the game myself, but James Clavell in Noble House says it takes five minutes to learn and a lifetime to master. The object of the game is to surround your opponent until they are so boxed in they can't move.

I was watching a documentary on the History channel about Vietnam. It compared Westmorland to Giap. Westmorland used chess as his strategy and a war of atrition or killing the enemy like taking chess pieces. Giap on the other hand used the strategy of Go. Guess who won.

General Petraeus made big headlines a couple of days ago as he set off to take over command in Afghanistan by saying "We're in it to win."

There is only one way for us to win a war like this if all our commanders can do is think like a chess champion: Nuke 'em. That's right kill every person in the country and after the radiation dissipates repopulate. Maybe we could empty our prisons and create another penal colony like Botany Bay. The Neutron bomb would do the trick and all we'd have to do is bury the dead and move in.

Now if we don't have the guts or political will to go that far, what in hell are we still doing over there. The pentagon's own report says that Kabul only has control of 29 of 121 provinces. The Taliban is winning their game of Go.

Think about all the 18 year old boys and girls getting ready to be deployed who were in the third grade when we invaded this country. Why do they have to fight and die over there?