Posted on 10/16/2006 9:58:48 AM PDT by World_Events
To me, the relentless mud slide of insurgency and civil war in Iraq is leading to unacceptable strategic disaster for the U.S. There appear to be no viable paths to follow in order to avoid it. Neither "staying the course"--whatever that Bush strategy now means--nor the Democrats' idea of exiting by timetables offers a semblance of success. Both approaches produce only nightmares: general chaos; Iraq's center taken over by terrorists emboldened by victory over America, their pockets bulging with Iraqi oil money; southern Iraq controlled by pro-Iranians or Iran itself; and Iraq's neighbors picking at the nation's carcass until regional war erupts and prompts oil prices to hit $150 a barrel.
But while those fears have a real hold on me, I can't help transporting myself back more than 30 years to that day in Vietnam when I felt certain the dominoes would fall throughout Asia and destroy America's strategic position there and elsewhere. I was wrong about those dominoes, as were almost all foreign-policy experts.
It was April 28, 1975. The last U.S. officials scrambled aboard helicopters, bound for home, heralding defeat as North Vietnamese troops tramped into the South Vietnamese capital. And it was the most ignominious kind of defeat, one that came after a decades-long war, after tens of thousands of Americans and Vietnamese had been killed, after our Presidents had pledged it would never come to that.
We expected China and the Soviet Union would be ascendant, that allies like Japan and South Korea would doubt our resolve and reposition themselves, and that North Vietnam would claim the rest of Indochina. Almost none of that happened.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
And the Afghanis, who were the next target of communist aggression.
I call him 'gal' for a reason. He is nothing but a panty-waist globalist.
Tell that to the two million that perished in the Cambodian Killing Fields.
If you're the media....YES.
There's plenty of tough talk on this thread. We don't need tough talk. We need ideas on how to win. "Stay the course" ain't working. If we can't come up with something better than that, eventually the cut-and-run crowd is going to get their way.
Many Americans either don't see the downside in leaving Iraq in the state it's in now, or they don't care about the consequences. They'd be happy to leave tomorrow, and to hell with the results. The left's plan of retreat may be dumb, but it's a plan. Without new strategies on how to win, we're eventually going to lose moderate and Republican support for the war entirely.
So, defeat is certainly an option, because left wants it, and the center and right are losing their will to fight. Rallying them will frankly require better leadership and better military thinking that what we've gotten so far.
Staying the course in Iraq is the only strategy for victory, all other strategies are cut and run and hence defeat, it is as simple as that.
Yes and they just keep confirming it. Democrats cannot be trusted with our security..EVER.
The terms neo con is only used by liberals, third party voters and Buchananites, all those are very bad with liberals being the worst, which category do you fit in?
What you said.
Maybe we should just
surrender to the Muslims
all around the globe,
let them run this world
for a while. In a few years
they'll be so damn tired
of stupid young kids
scumbag politicians and
millions and millions
of executions
of people who just will not
stop drinking beer or
stop wearing Ally
McBeal dresses, the Muslims
will be begging us
to take back over
and let them get back to their
caves and tents and prayers . . .
Rush is talking about this article right now...
Winning the Peace is a long term process where a 10th Century Dictatorship must be transformed into a 21st Century Democracy!!
I know that Kerry and Company can go on and on about their "plans" but historical trends, (The March of Time!) aren't so easity managed.
Time WILL tell but not by some some arrogant DIMWIT
What we need to do in Iraq is not politically viable.
We need to go in there with overwhelming force (because THAT is what the arabs understand) and absolutely CRUSH the insurgency.
We should hermetically seal the borders (Syria and Iran) and interdict both weapons and PAX.
I can't help transporting myself back more than 30 years to that day in Vietnam when I felt certain the dominoes would fall throughout Asia and destroy America's strategic position there and elsewhere. I was wrong about those dominoes, as were almost all foreign-policy experts.
Three million dead Cambodians would cancel their subscription to Time, if they had one.
You say this like it's a bad thing. Of course we're there for oil. Oil is the lifeblood of our industrial civilization - without it, our whole society would grind to a halt. Fighting for oil is literally fighting for the American way of life. The only real reason to bring democracy to Arabia is to make them more amenable to selling us their oil without trying to kill us with the profits. As a grand strategy, that's more sensible long term than propping up one dictatorship after another ad infinitum. It might not work, but the other way was definitely not working either.
Your response is stunning in its lack of insight. But then, what can I expect from a fella who uses "neo-con" in all apparent seriousness?
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