The US military’s top enlisted serviceman is right: ISIS fighters must surrender or die via shovels

First noticed by Saagar Enjeti of the Daily Caller, in an official post to Facebook and Twitter on Tuesday, Command Sgt. Maj. John Troxell said that surrendering ISIS fighters will receive a “chow, a cot and due process.”

But for others who choose to continue their campaign, Troxell offers a simple alternative.

“[I]f they choose not to surrender, then we will kill them with extreme prejudice. Whether that be through security force assistance, by dropping bombs on them, shooting them in the face, or beating them to death with our entrenching tools.” Posted alongside this text is a photo of a U.S. soldier holding an entrenching tool.

Of course, seeing as Troxell is the senior enlisted advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, some (like the first commenter below his post) will criticize his language as excessive.

I disagree with any who do so.

First off, this is war, and the objective of combat operations in war is to close with and destroy the enemy. The best commanders in military history — Napoleon, Hannibal, Alexander, Caesar, and Patton — were all defined by their relentless focus on maintaining such operational speed and aggression that their adversaries could not even plan effective resistance, let alone hold out. As a highly decorated student of military history and an aggressive airborne infantry/tanker qualified soldier, Troxell knows this.

As does Troxell’s department chief.

As an extension, this call for maximal aggression is not immoral but instrumental. Offering ISIS fighters a binary choice between relatively comfortable surrender (far more comfortable than they afford their prisoners) and expedient annihilation, Troxell removes any doubt as to how this conflict will end. As ISIS fighters continue to lose faith, the U.S. is working to smash their morale and end their threat as quickly as possible. That’s a good thing.

And for that reason, Troxell’s post was a good one.