No More Vietnams(This time, let's finish the job.)

Weekly Standard ^ | 05/08/2006, Volume 011, Issue 32 | David Gelernter

[kellynla]

NOT LONG AGO RICHARD COHEN of the Washington Post wrote a column about Iraq headlined "As in Vietnam, dereliction of duty all over again." The Vietnam analogy has been part of the Iraq war story since the fighting started (in fact, since before it started). The Bush administration often deals with its critics by ignoring them. This time it can't. Too much rides on the president looking these critics in the eye and telling them: Damned right this is Vietnam all over again. Only this time we will not get scared and walk out in the middle. This time we will stand fast, and repair a piece of the American psyche that has been damaged and hurting ever since we ran from Vietnam in disgrace way back in April 1975.

Of course any citizen is welcome to criticize the conduct of any war--tactfully, without giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Maybe we are doing things all wrong in Iraq. But those who launch the Vietnam analogy at the administration are lobbing heavy artillery for a different reason. They are predicting (with obnoxious schadenfreude) that Iraq will turn out like Vietnam in the end: We will proclaim ourselves beaten, give up, and go home. The sooner we understand this, the sooner we will do the intelligent and humane thing and surrender.

These critics ought to be told firmly that Iraq is indeed another Vietnam. Once again we are in the middle of cleaning out one of the world's ugliest abscesses, which turns out (again) to be infected and putrefying.

In Iraq as in Vietnam, the government gave the American people an unrealistic estimate of how hard the war would be. Both times it was an honest but costly mistake, which could probably have been avoided.

[sitetest]

The dirty little secret is that many of the brightest of the Boomer generation were too lilly-livered to go to Vietnam, and they hid their cowardice by self-righteously protesting against the "immoral" war.

Now, 35 years later, they still can't accept that they were wrong, that their take on the war was evil and self-serving. Thus, they can't take off their Vietnam-colored glasses that make all wars look as "immoral" as the Vietnam War. Why certainly! Iraq IS as "immoral" as Vietnam was. Which is to say, the war in Iraq is not immoral at all, and in fact, is a highly moral enterprise. As was the war in Vietnam.

But those who ran away 35 years ago are still running.

From the truth.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Stolen Honor Reclaimed

[Cannoneer No. 4]

The Legacy of Tet

[Loud Mime]

Nixon wrote a book entitled "No More Vietnams."

Some of the writing was incredible....good, excellent.

When we fight a war, we should fight to win, not engage in tactics that satisfy the liberals.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Which side is the national media on?

[MCCRon58]

Bingo!!

One of the American ideals my dad drove into my head, was that a man unwilling to fight in the cause of freedom and liberty, deserved neither, and, in fact, wasn't much of a man.

No one likes to have to face his shortcomings or lack of support for good,in the face of evil. So, rather than have to admit to themselves that they were creeps, cretins, cowards, or traitors, they must denigrate the effort to fight or defend freedom and liberty.

This allows them to not have to face the fact that it they who are corrupt, not the cause.

Even more sad, is that when viewed in context of the cold war as a whole, Vietnam was a victory in that the spread of communism did not continue as it was feared to when the war was initially justified. (but then, we CAN'T think of it in those terms, for then it would bring the motivations and actions of the anti-war cretins into question.)

[Red6]

You basically have two groups at this point. Those for and those against the war. The line between the two groups is really drawn by who likes and dislikes Bush.

Those against the war will minimize or ignore all success stories. They will look for conspiracies, ulterior motives based on (oil, Bush wanting to finish his dad's job or being on a crusade). They will try to connect Iraq to Vietnam (make it appear as somehow similar) but will try to disconnect Iraq from the Global War On Terror, WMD, genocide and other issues. They will use “Schadenfreude” as a justification for their position – (Fahrenheit 9-11, Abu Gahrib etc).

Iraq is in reality a “center of gravity” for the Bush administration. For the Democratic Party it’s a weak spot they can exploit politically to achieve an end; undoubtedly with some success so far. Iraq is about political “opportunism” as demonstrated by Kerry who was for and against the war, for and against the defense appropriations………. The polemics you here by the MSM pundit who in reality has no clue has nothing to do with reality anymore. It's all about agenda's, may they be ideological, political, or for whatever other reasons. The arguments presented are not new, there is generally little to no substance and they are best described as facades to push ones own end.

[Chgogal]

This is a good read.

"The left had better get this straight: Vietnam was an aberration. There will be no more Vietnams."

"Every American schoolchild used to know what Valley Forge meant: Stand firm and fight, no matter how terrible things are."

If you have young kids in school, this will be a good read to forward them. My niece and nephew are history aficionados.

[EagleUSA]

When we fight a war, we should fight to win, not engage in tactics that satisfy the liberals.
------
Beyond true. As a vet of that war, I hold only rabid contempt for the liberals that never let us fight the war to win it, and wasted 50,000 lives. Let us hope that this nation NEVER walks away from another war that they did not win, but at the same time, we should not get involved unless we are going to fight it, fight it hard, win it fast, and get out.

[sitetest]

Dear MCCRon58,

What compounds the problem is that many of the brightest Boomers, who ran away, who acted in cowardice, and covered their cowardice in self-righteousness, are now leaders in every field of endeavor in our nation.

Through their aggregated power, these power elites maintain the rigid stalinist orthodoxy that the Vietnam War was immoral, and any war that looks like it to any degree is therefore also immoral.


sitetest

[MCCRon58]

Fear of being thought a coward, and being judged by your fellow citizen as somehow not being not worthy of respect, has led to many evil consequences.

[Chgogal]

Interesting ((((Ping))))!

[trickyricky]

the war in Iraq is not immoral at all

I believe you're right, but from what I've heard from
the GI's that I've talked to, they hate us over there.
They, meaning the general public.
When we finally leave, they (the GP) will probably be
shooting us in the back as we go.

Then they'll probably throw a big party.
Then they'll start settling centuries old scores.

If I were king, I'd arm the lot of them, stand back
and let them have at it, and let allah, the moon god,
sort them out.

[GianniV]

President Bush goes on the offensive for about 2 days, then disappears for a month while he and his party is relentlessly attacked by shrieking liberals and journalists.

He cannot continue to do this - he needs to be on the offensive for the rest of his term. Start holding weekly or bi-weekly press conferences. Get in people's faces.

What's that saying - "Out of sight, out of mind?"

Oh, and taking the position of all these illegal alien FELONS doesn't help either. If he publicly supported deportation and building a wall, his poll numbers would skyrocket.

[cdrw]

Very thoughtful perspective.

If I may deviate from his main point ...

How did I manage to miss the part of history when the administration convinced the public that war in Iraq would be quick and easy? Am I just brain dead on my memory of what the administration actually said? Who in their right mind thought that "mop-up" would last three months in a country surrounded by geopolitical interests who loath a free and democratic Iraq?

As my memory goes - the opposition to the war claimed we would be ground to a pulp in the next Stalingrad right after we finished retrieving the tens of thousands of American bodies from the craggy, winterous mountains of Afghanistan. The administration said it wasn't going to be easy by any means but neither would it be a blood bath. Now the opposition (aka news media) have rewritten the administration's rational assessment of the situation as if their 'it wont be Stalingrad' had been a reference to today's IED's and relatively very small casualty count.

It's too bad to see these contortions of the truth propagated.

I, for one, never had any expectation that the fighting in Iraq would EVER end. Neither do I recall every hearing the administration indicate otherwise. It has never ended in Israel. It will never end in Iraq. Our objective is to build a self-sustaining Iraqi government that can carry on their own self defense. The insurgency will never end and thats just fine. The seeds of liberty will be violently opposed by surrounding countries and by our strategic adversaries (the Russians, Chinese and bit players like the French). Nobody should ever have expected anything else.

[katagious]

"President Bush goes on the offensive for about 2 days, then disappears for a month while he and his party is relentlessly attacked by shrieking liberals and journalists.
deja' vu

[newpooh]

When we fight a war, we should fight to win... You're right but I'd feel better about Bush if he had stayed on track to find Bin Laden rather than divert to Saddam when it got tough.

[usmcobra]

The only way to prevent another Viet Nam is to string up from the nearest flagpole any member of congress that protests a war they sent our troops to fight.

[ishabibble]

Of course it was your father who gave this tenet to you.
The biggest disaster to ever hit civilization is feminism.


Truly strong and honest women are never cowards. They stand and work and fight in their own unique way, as they have since the beginning of time. With the rise of feminism, and it's attendant sicknesses, the secular movement and the homosex agenda, more women have been either pushed aside or pushed to the forefront. The feminists like Bella Abzug may be burning in hell, but their legacy lives on in the modern American woman. Broken marriages, no marriages, daycare babies, indoctrination education is that legacy.

Career women are, by far, the most dangerous. WWII had Tokyo Rose, we have Valerie Plame, Dana Priest, Mary McCarthy, and Medea Benjamin. Whenever I read some god awful article with a Leftist slant, little fact, and poor workmanship, I go back and note the gender of the writer. No. "Journalist". It's a very low paying and surprisingly monotonous job, but it is a crucial "career" choice in the feminist playbook.

Even strong women can get confused. What are we to make of a world where the words of a certifiable mental case and sexual deviant (pregnant, unwed Angelina) mean more than highly intelligent and educated women who can make a difference, but are ignored since they aren't movie stars?
How fractured is that cold hard fact?


From Margaret Sanger to Carrie Nation to Cynthia McKinney, we can trace the weakening of the American society right back to weak, cowardly women who care nothing for what is right, only what they have as an agenda.

If you could list only three women who are dangerous to America, who would they be? My picks:

1. Ruth Bader Ginsburg
2. Hillary Clinton
3. Helen Thomas

Each day, these women harm our country every time they speak.