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Another Vietnam? (Thomas Sowell)
Townhall.com ^ | January 16, 2007 | Thomas Sowell

Posted on 01/15/2007 9:30:59 PM PST by jazusamo

Nothing is easier than to second-guess decisions made in wartime. Anyone who has bothered to read the history of wars knows that very few wars have been without disastrous surprises, often on both sides.

It is not that the people in charge are stupid. Too many things are unpredictable in war, despite politicians who demand timetables, as if running a war is like running a train.

We can now look at the Iraq war with hindsight, as no President or Secretary of Defense could when making decisions that had to be made. Still, it can be useful to determine with hindsight what went wrong, if only to avoid similar mistakes in the future and to see what needs to be changed in the present.

Despite all the politicians who were demanding more troops a year ago, and who have turned around and are now demanding that no more troops be sent to Iraq, the purely military aspects of the war have gone better than in most wars.

We have learned the hard way, notably in the Vietnam war, that military victories are not enough. American troops scored a big victory on the battlefield in 1968 that was presented in the American media as a big defeat -- and that began the political unravelling of the Vietnam war.

Many in the media seem to think that they did something noble, to get us out of an "unwinnable" war. But the war was unwinnable only because they made it so politically. Even after American troops were withdrawn from Vietnam, South Vietnam was able to hold off the invaders from North Vietnam.

Only after Congress cut off financial support for South Vietnam, while the North Vietnamese continued to get support from the Communist bloc, did South Vietnam fall.

Since then, even the Communist conquerors have admitted that they did not win on the battlefield, but in the American media and in the American political arena, surrounded by an atmosphere created by a defeatist media.

Most of the today's media, led by the New York Times, has been even more blatantly one-sided in their reporting. Everyone I have heard from in person who has actually been in Iraq paints a far different picture from that of the gloom and doom of the media.

Make no mistake about it, we can still lose this war, but it will have to be lost politically. Most of the tragic chaos in Iraq today has its origins in politics.

American and other coalition troops in Iraq have had their hands tied with "rules of engagement" based on political, rather than military, considerations.

You cannot have law and order in any country where armed bands of competing militias can terrorize the population. Instead of confronting these militias at the outset with an ultimatum to disarm or be killed, we let the Iraqi government veto what our military forces could do, leaving Shi'ite militias intact in Baghdad's "Sadr City" neighborhood and elsewhere.

Having pushed the "democracy" vision for Iraq, we could not simply disregard the country's elected government. But democracy arose in western civilization centuries after law and order had been established. We tried to do it in the reverse order in Iraq.

When push comes to shove, people will support tyranny rather than suffer lethal chaos that makes normal everyday life impossible for themselves and their children.

The success or failure of the troop surge in Iraq may depend far more on whether those troops can again be hamstrung by politically restrictive "rules of engagement" than on how many troops there are.

The Maliki government is politically dependent on one of the very Baghdad militias that needs to be disarmed. We can pressure and warn Maliki all we want, but his real choice will be whether he can survive -- either politically or personally -- without militia support.

Our choice may become whether we are prepared to sacrifice more American lives in order to prop up the Maliki government or whether we are prepared to sacrifice the Maliki government in order to restore law and order in Iraq.

That government is a product of our "nation-building" under the banner of a "democracy" for which Iraq may not have been ready.

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy.


TOPICS: Editorial; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Government
KEYWORDS: iraqwar; sowell; thomassowell; woy
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To: NormsRevenge

We suggest that those who still don't understand read Lewis Sorley's "A Better War." Under Abrams and Moorer we had it won on the battlefield.


21 posted on 01/15/2007 11:59:36 PM PST by AmericanVictory (Should we be more like them, or they like us?)
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To: wodinoneeye

This was hard for me to swallow, but there was a different party in power when mistake were made in Iraq. Democrats may wield the knife, but who created the knife and then handed it to them.


22 posted on 01/16/2007 1:27:05 AM PST by David Isaac
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To: jazusamo
Thomas Sowell would be the ideal candidate for the Supreme Court but the 'enemy within' would never allow it to happen.

With every move they make I believe the evil minded commie-rats in DC are bound and determined to make us lose this war by whatever means it takes, and I also firmly believe their goal is to enable another 9/11 disaster to happen while President Bush is in office.

Losing the war would not be a big enough black mark against President Bush's legacy in their feeble minds, but if another 9/11 should happen during his term, it would help erase klintons dereliction of duty etc., from the publics minds, he'd be put back up on the royal pedestal he's frequently fell from lately, and it would help pave the way back into the WH for the two devils disciples.

The klintons may have moved out of the WH in January 2001 but he's still the one cracking the whip, and just like the ' Pied Piper' he'll lead the rats in power off the edge of the cliff and drag the nation along with them.

The days the klintons were born should go down as the blackest days in American history.
23 posted on 01/16/2007 1:32:50 AM PST by AmeriBrit
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To: jazusamo

You can add me, thanks.


24 posted on 01/16/2007 2:31:27 AM PST by garylmoore (Faith is the assurance of things unseen.)
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To: jazusamo

If the democrats are in charge it will be. I wonder if any of our elected officals has a spine.


25 posted on 01/16/2007 5:52:56 AM PST by freekitty
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To: jazusamo

Please add me to the ping list.


26 posted on 01/16/2007 5:53:38 AM PST by freekitty
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To: Rembrandt
Thomas Sowell would be a brilliant addition to the U.S. Supreme Court but, of course, with Chuckie running the committee, it could never happen.
Actually, the only scenario in which he could be on SCOTUS is now coming into place. Or will in the summer of '08, if a vacancy arises then.

Sowell is old enough to be retiring from the Supreme Court. But with the Senate in Democratic hands, Bush couldn't get anyone worth while confirmed anyway. So a recess appointment of Thomas Sowell would be wonderfully sensible.

The other possibility I would favor would be the nomination of Jeb Bush. Jeb would be a good fit, and could hardly turn it down. But for that reason he too would be opposed and probably defeated by the Democrats. The upside to that is that he would then have the fire in his belly to run for POTUS - and as the most popular two-term governor of a major state, he would be a strong candidate even if his last name is Bush. The Democratic nominee's last name is likely to be Clinton, anyway . . . And if it isn't, it will probably be a southern Democratic governor, so we would need Jeb on the ticket to have much chance of holding the red states.


27 posted on 01/16/2007 6:54:13 AM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion (The idea around which liberalism coheres is that NOTHING actually matters except PR.)
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To: jazusamo

Bump for Lunchtime.


28 posted on 01/16/2007 7:03:56 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin (Save The Earth. It's The Only Planet With Chocolate.)
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To: Rembrandt; jazusamo; El Sordo
Thomas Sowell would make a great Supreme Court Justice, IMO.

He wouldn't take the job.

Not even with a gun to his head.

Whether he would do so now or not, I can't say. But if you could read the "Letters to the Editor" page of the Wall Street Journal July 7, 1981 you wouldn't say that he never would have. Because on the very day that O'Connor was nominated, the WSJ published a letter suggesting that there should be an economist on the Supreme Court, who would understand the ramifications of policy on the economy.

I read that, and I said, "I know just who would fill that bill - Thomas Sowell!" Then I read the byline of the letter - and it was written by Thomas Sowell!


29 posted on 01/16/2007 7:13:58 AM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion (The idea around which liberalism coheres is that NOTHING actually matters except PR.)
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion
Then I read the byline of the letter - and it was written by Thomas Sowell!

Interesting, thanks for sharing that. I have been of the opinion that he would possibly turn down a nomination but that sheds new light.

30 posted on 01/16/2007 7:26:13 AM PST by jazusamo (http://warchronicle.com/TheyAreNotKillers/DefendOurMarines.htm)
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To: AmericanVictory
Peter Braestrup's Big Story is also a good book. It is about the media coverage of the Tet Offensive.
31 posted on 01/16/2007 8:34:25 AM PST by brf1
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To: jazusamo
Thanks for the post! Here's the link to the second part of this article on FR:

Another Vietnam?: Part II (Thomas Sowell)
32 posted on 01/17/2007 4:25:09 PM PST by ConservativeStLouisGuy (11th FReeper Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Unnecessarily Excerpt)
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To: ConservativeStLouisGuy

Thanks for posting the link to Part II, CSLGuy, I didn't think to do that.


33 posted on 01/17/2007 4:35:20 PM PST by jazusamo (http://warchronicle.com/TheyAreNotKillers/DefendOurMarines.htm)
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To: jazusamo

34 posted on 01/17/2007 5:01:04 PM PST by Gritty (It's Bush's war. As it splinters the GOP power, we wait to pick up the pieces-Rahm Emanuel)
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To: jazusamo

>Thomas Sowell would make a great Supreme Court Justice, IMO.<

I agree, but he would have as much a chance of being confirmed as Robert Bork was. Sob! :o(


35 posted on 01/17/2007 5:08:11 PM PST by Paperdoll
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To: Gritty

The Congressional Dems enabled that atrocity to take place, I'm praying history doesn't repeat itself.


36 posted on 01/17/2007 5:20:25 PM PST by jazusamo (http://warchronicle.com/TheyAreNotKillers/DefendOurMarines.htm)
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To: jazusamo

You're welcome.


37 posted on 01/19/2007 2:45:13 AM PST by ConservativeStLouisGuy (11th FReeper Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Unnecessarily Excerpt)
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