Posted on 07/04/2003 10:23:05 AM PDT by dalereed
Edited on 07/04/2003 12:02:29 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
During a vice presidential visit to San Diego in 1970, the late Spiro Agnew famously remarked, "In the United States today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism."
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who served alongside Agnew in the Nixon administration, might be inclined to agree with his one-time colleague. Especially after his Pentagon press briefing this week.
"Can you remind us again why this is not a quagmire?" asked one wag. "And can you tell us why you're so reluctant to say that what's going on in Iraq now is a guerrilla war?"
A fellow wag followed up. Could it be that Secretary Rumsfeld, that Gen. Richard Meyers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are loath to concede that Iraq has disintegrated into a guerrilla war because it "begins to bring to mind the last one that the United States had, which was Vietnam?"
"Which," the wag added, sarcastically, "I think most people can agree was not a resounding success."
A lay observer might conclude from the line of questioning that more than a few members of the media are almost hopeful that the transformation of Iraq into a peaceful democracy goes badly. That they are still bummed that the United States was able to turn Saddam Hussein out of power in less than a month and with far fewer casualties than much of the anti-war media predicted.
That they derive some perverse consolation in the ludicrous notion that the United States suddenly finds itself facing a guerrilla war in Iraq; a quagmire of Vietnam proportions.
Rumsfeld suffered the anti-war wags more gladly than they deserved.
He explained that there is no organized insurgency in Iraq; that the sporadic attacks against American troops are being carried out by disparate groups with different agendas. That includes looters, "who take advantage of opportunities that exist from time to time," according to Rumsfeld, as well criminals who were freed from Iraqi prisons, "tens of thousands" put out on the street.
There also are the remnants of Saddam's regime, said the defense secretary. Including "the Baathists, the Fedayeen Saddam, some army people, some Special Republican Guard, some SSO (Special Security Organization) people."
Then there are foreign infiltrators, terrorist types from other countries who crossed the Syrian border into Iraq, as well as Iranian-backed Shiites.
Day by day, U.S. forces root out those elements. Like the raid this past weekend, Operation Desert Scorpion, which, according to Meyers, resulted in the detention of more than 1,300 individuals, and confiscation of 500 AK-47s, more than 200 hand grenades and 100 rocket-propelled grenades.
Such raids will continue, assured Rumsfeld and Meyers, until Iraq is secure and safe.
As to the suggestion that Iraq has transmogrified into a latter-day Vietnam for the United States, Rumsfeld dismissed the cockeyed notion. "It's a different time," he said. "It's a different era. It's a different place."
Indeed, for the United States, the Vietnam War lasted the better part of nine years. More than 8.5 million Americans served in that war, some 58,193 of whom lost their lives.
U.S. forces have been in Iraq less than four months. Fewer than a quarter-million were needed to rout Saddam's army. And the U.S. military has suffered nearly 58,000 fewer deaths than in Vietnam.
Of course, the United States will be in Iraq for some time to come. President Bush acknowledged that this week when he said that the rebuilding of post-war Iraq, the orderly and peaceful transition from Saddam's despotic regime to Western-style democracy will be a "massive and long-term undertaking."
And, yes, there will be more U.S. casualties in Iraq, more deaths. That is regrettable. But it is absurd for anyone to even suggest that the numbers of casualties, of deaths, will be remotely close to the levels seen during the Vietnam War.
Though Iraq news coverage has been relentlessly negative in recent weeks, the American public remains positive.
Nearly six of 10 still think the situation in Iraq was worth going to war over, according to the latest Gallup Poll for CNN and USA Today. And nearly seven of 10 think it is worth having U.S. troops there now.
"There will be no return to tyranny in Iraq," President Bush said this week, "and those who threaten the order and stability of that country will face ruin just as surely as the regime they once served."
The American people apparently share the commander in chief's resolve.
Perkins can be reached via e-mail at .
Copyright 2003 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Can you imagine fighting a War entailing the sacrifice, upheval and complex scope of WWII TODAY, with 24X7 Cable coverage and worldwide communication capability.
There were surreal and ridiculously immense loss of human life in obscenely short moments in that war. Thousands dying in an hour. We dropped fire bombs on civilian populations, killing tens of thousands in Dresden and Berlin in a day.
That was a different era, but the human tragedy is timeless.
It's why you and I sleep in peace and confidence in the security and prosperity of tomorrow each night. That's what the boys are fighting for. That's what they've always fought for. And always will. This is a vital mission, and our soldiers are excelling.
It is right to have worry for your loved ones and insecurity for the future. But ... this is a HISTORIC time in World History. I think the Middle East is going to experience a Renaissance going forward. I do.
But, remember ... the Tikritis and most Sunnis of Baghdad were the beneficiaries of the Saddam regime. They were the government functionaries and bureaucrats who got paid. They HAVE lost security and protection and a sense of order in their lives. That's why many are surly and resentful. That's the way it goes, but they're not the ones taking up arms. That's the hardcore Murder Incorporated who have NO future but kill before being killed.
I think the Shiites of Basra and Nasariyah and the Kurds in Mosul might have a different reality. They're not going to get gassed by Chemical Ali or slaughtered by Uday's mobsters because they looked at a woman he fancied.
Nope. And that is why the media was tightly controlled during WWII. The first dead bodies of American soldiers were not even shown to the American public until late 1943 when King Roosevelt thought we were getting lax about the war and "allowed" "Life Magazine" to show three dead bodies of marines on some pacific island beach.
I knew one, once. He's buried under my pool in the backyard.
Just kidding...but you catch my sentiment. 
The Allied Command would send hundreds of bomber crewmen to their deaths as a feint to mask another campaign. What a human tragedy. Counting the civilians, there may have been 70 million deaths because Hitler always dreamed of conquering Russia. The Japanese were building their little War Machine to mass murder Chinese and they needed oil that we didn't think they should have given their bad behavior.
What an absurd history Russia has. They must procreate like rabbits there. How do you lose 50-70 million people, 40-50 million men in 35 years? Volume. Volume. Volume.
What a place to grow up in the 30s. You had a good chance of being dead by 1950.
The Germans military killed 7.7 million Soviet civilians, 5.3 million Polish civilians, 1.3 million Yugoslavian citizens and almost 400,000 French, 330,000 Czechs. The Japanese killed 10 million Chinese civilians.
Because we dropped the two big boys on Japan, their civilian losses were only 360,000. That was a Godsend for those people.
13 million Chinese died at the hands of the Japanese when the military deaths are added. It's unfathomable.
I'm convinced the Dresden raid was a statement to Stalin, who Churchill despised and held in total contempt. Come westward, you violent peasant, you'll get all of this. Churchill had no faith in FDR at the point, and he was right in his suspicion.
After the Luftwaffe killed women and children in Coventry and London, after the reports of the genocides in Warsaw and the Ukraine, I don't think Churchill was too concerned about a bombing at the German solar plexis. The firestorm fashioned a horrific vision, we fear burns in a primal way, but Churchill saw toddlers being removed from Coventry rubble and they were just as dead from blunt force trauma as a Saxony artiste who immolated. People buried in rubble die of asphixiation, and most of the victims at Dresden died of asphixiation.
There were reports of 36,000 to 130,000 dead there. 5.6 million Jews were murdered in systematic assembly line death by the German people. War is hell.
Stalin got the message, and while he was rolling FDR he taunted the brilliant old sod with glares. Yalta was a disgrace. Truman, Ike or some Senior Senator should have stepped in to protect American interests. Churchill saw a guy worse than Hitler walk away with the blue ribbon.
These days Rumsfeld is blindly worshipped as a god on Free Republic.
Well, I think the world of Rumsfeld. I'm not blind, and I certainly don't think of him as a god. Rumsfeld has proven himself to me to be an exceptional leader and I respect him for that.I remember the days when freepers were skeptical of politicians and burearcrats.
Oh, you mean during the clintoon administration? Gee, I wonder why ?? There is a world of difference betweeen the clintoon administration and the Bush administration, imho.
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