U.S. Army Joint Staff Director of Operations Lt. Gen. William Mayville Jr. shows before and after images of airstrikes in Syria during a Sept. 23, 2014 briefing at the Pentagon. (AP/DOD Photo)
(CNSNews.com) - It's great that President Obama "put together this miniature coalition of Sunni Arab States" to fight terrorists in Syria, but the analysts are missing something important: The measure of success should be "acres and acres of dead terrorists," not "knocking out windows," Retired Army Lt. Col. Ralph Peters told Fox News's Sean Hannity Tuesday night:
"These strikes (Monday) night were designed to limit terrorist casualties. These were not serious, meaningful strikes!
"And I'll give you the evidence. Why did we go in at night? There was no air defense threat...If you wanted to kill terrorists, you would have hit those headquarters and compounds and logistics sites at 10:00 or 11:00 in the morning, when they were crowded with leaders, staff officers, flunkies, et cetera.
"Instead, we hit empty buildings at night! We knocked down antennas, we blew out windows!
"That is not the way to defeat terrorists who behead Americans! We should have gone in in the morning, gone in heavy, and killed -- let me give you the measure of success in air strikes against ISIS. It is not knocking out windows. It is acres and acres of dead terrorists! That is tactical success!"
A Pentagon spokesman Admiral John Kirby said the U.S. is still assessing the effects of Monday night's air strikes, but "we know we hit what we were aiming at." Kirby said the goal was to hit "hard targets" that affect the terrorists' capabilities "to command and control, to sustain themselves, to train themselves, to recruit."
Peters told Hannity he's always glad when President Obama does anything to stop terrorism.
"But he wants to wage war by measuring it out in teaspoons. And the cardinal advantage of a superpower, for God's sakes, is super power! If you're going to go to war, you go to war to win! Small war, big war, doesn't matter.
"But all this, you know, modulated responses and graduated buildups -- no! If the United States goes to war, we should fight to win! And I'm sick of hearing pundits in Washington who never served in uniform saying, Oh, victory is impossible in the 21st century.
"Victory is always possible if you're willing to pay the price, if you're willing to be ruthless and ferocious and do what's right for our security and win!
Peters, now a military analyst for Fox News, said the United States faces "truly evil opponents" and will have to fight them "for a long time." He also said civilian casualties cannot be avoided if the job is going to be done right:
"And by the way, another thing we got to get over, this nonsense about there can't be any civilian casualties! War is ugly, sloppy and messy, and sometimes there are civilian casualties, especially when your enemy uses human shields. If you're going to go after ISIS, you got to suck it up and do what's right. And by the way, civilian casualties -- look what ISIS is doing, and it's actually gaining them recruits as they slaughter civilians."