A war story: in 2005 I was a junior officer in Afghanistan. A navsof operation targeting a local warlord named Ahmed Shah went horribly wrong, a four man team was overrun, and the helicopter carrying the QRF was shot down. I was not involved with the initial operation. My role

Was to sit in the back of the room while senior NCOs and officers debated what to do about the recovery operation. Was it safe to get another bird in there? Should there be a ground force? Etc. What I remember most about it was one very very senior NCO with decades of experience

adamantly saying,”We need to kill Ahmed Shah tonight!” His point was the longer we let this man live, the worse it would be. If he escaped not only did we fail a mission, but he would become this myth who had kicked the Americans in the teeth and gotten away with it. He’d be a

legend. As it turned out, Shah escaped that night. But what he said stuck with me: the best way to stop bad actors and prevent more damage is to act swiftly, decisively, and RETAKE the initiative. They need to react to us. They need to feel the pressure. They need to be stopped.

Now, in America, we have a developing insurgency led by white nationalists convinced the election was stolen. The more time they have, the more power they gain. Law enforcement needs kinetic ops arresting and trying those who participated in this. Finances must be dried up for

those who enabled this. But the most important thing is for the Republican Party to do what is right and convict Donald Trump and cut off the head of the snake. I mean this metaphorically of course, but “we-need to kill Ahmed Shah, tonight.”