WHY IRAQ IS BECOMING VIETNAM

Ediblog ^ | May 10, 2004 | Patrick Rooney

[abigail2]

Why Iraq Is Becoming Vietnam

Liberals have long dreamed of turning our occupation of Iraq into another Vietnam, a scar on the face of America that they could revel in. I believe in many ways, they are succeeding.

Their latest victory is their success in turning incidents of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison into an indictment of American foreign policy and the President. Our Defense Secretary was dragged before a motley group of Senatorial inquisitors, many of whom don’t have the moral standing to tie his shoe, much less interrogate him.

The “scandal” is the Mai Lai massacre to this generation of liberals, and it reaches them like manna from heaven. They are hoping it is the turning point that allows them to toss dirt onto our Iraqi operation. It follows close on the heels of the Fallujah debacle, where America flinched instead of laying down the boot on crazy cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his band of fanatical thugs.

America essentially let human scum get away with murdering our countrymen and desecrating their bodies on worldwide TV. Everyone knew the appropriate response would be to cordon off the city, allow the innocent to escape, and liquidate the terrorists. But we didn’t have the will to follow through, fearing the world would view too many civilian casualties on TV.

The failure cannot be blamed on liberals. After all, they’re not failing—they’re succeeding. It is the decent people of America who are suffering the failure of will. Our president is guilty of the same.

President George W. Bush has proven himself to be a very capable war president, but an uneven president in non-war matters. The reason is that he correctly perceived a need in war to do whatever it took to prevail. But once the hot war was finished in Iraq, he began to filter his decisions through the prism of political consideration. That is a recipe for failure.

When will we learn, I wonder. Vietnam was a humiliating defeat. Not because it was an immoral war, as liberals like to say, but because we failed to let the troops win due to political considerations. Iraq is no different. The Marines could have subdued Fallujah in days, if not hours, if they were given a free hand.

What has all of this political consideration gotten for Mr. Bush and for America? We are so worried about the “Arab street” and what they will think about everything. To hell with the Arab street! The Arab street are the same people who cheered on 9-11.

It is obvious to anyone with half a brain that America is a decent nation, and that terrorists are evil. When wrongdoing is found on our side, it is an anomaly. With terrorists it is their modus operandi. Yet CNN and their ilk continue to produce pieces spotlighting America’s errors in war, and not the daily routine of our bloodthirsty enemies.

President Bush had it right when he long ago called Iraq, Iran, and North Korea the “axis of evil.” We would have done well to quickly move as needed against these enemies. But indecision, weakness, and lack of preparation have caused the Iraq campaign to languish. Its overall slowness is killing whatever support and goodwill the administration may have had for future campaigns.

On September 11th, 2001, fanatical terrorists made clear that they had declared war on us. This would be a war of annihilation—either theirs or ours—there was no third solution.

Currently we have the world’s terrorists right where we want them—coming to us in Iraq. Would we prefer they come back to New York City. Or perhaps Los Angeles, or Chicago?

Are we naïve enough to think that if we walk away from Iraq, we won’t be followed home? That the world’s terrorists won’t correctly gather that we are running away with our tail between our legs? Look what happened when we left Vietnam—mass graves and lost prestige.

Lack of will was our true enemy in Vietnam. We must exorcize this demon, or we will be condemned to repeat history.

©2004 Patrick Rooney

Patrick Rooney is the Director of Special Projects at BOND, the Brotherhood Organization of A New Destiny, a nonprofit organization dedicated to “Rebuilding the Family By Rebuilding the Man.”

For more information, please visit www.bondinfo.org, call 1-800-411-BOND (2663), or write to patrick@bondinfo.org.

[ggordon22]

Somehow I knew you would pounce on that one part of my response, and ignore all that stuff about income tax and George Bush etc.

Is there a right to property? Some on the left will tell you that "all property is theft".

This is actually an anarchist slogan. Very few people on the left are anarchists. Most liberals pay rent or mortgages and would not take kindly to having their property liberated by an anarchist.

[ggordon22]

I don't know what to say to that. If I were a liberal, I'd call myself one.

[metesky]

ggordon22 needs a good reading list @ post #96.

[Qwinn]

"Sorry, this is simply not accurate. I'll just point out three things here: "

* those reasons were not cited from the very beginning. The WMD justification came out in 2001 or 2002, well before the 'humanitarian' justification. But none of that matters, because...

Well, this isn't true, the humanitarian reasons were cited as far back as the January 2002 "Axis of Evil" speech. If you want to know when WMD became an issue, well, you'd have to go back to 1998, when every single Democrat swore up and down in every bit as much detail and "imminence" as Bush that he had them. But Bush first mentioned Iraqi WMD -and- humanitarian abuses at pretty much the same time.


"* there were no WMDs."

Logical fallacy: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absense. To this day, I cannot understand on what logical basis liberals simply dismiss that huge convoy that we tracked going into Syria just as the war started, as if it couldn't possibly have had anything to do with it. Or how they explain those thousands and thousands of chemical suits we found.

* Saddam wasn't linked to Al Queda.

In order to believe this, one would have to ignore vast reams of evidence of exactly those links. These links, by the way, were reported extensively by media outlets such as the NY Times, Washington Post and others in the months between October and December of 2001. Piles have been added since then. You are at the proper site to educate yourself on them. Just do some searches.

Qwinn

[R. Scott]

Comparing Iraq to Vietnam is gigantic stretch.

Not much of a stretch if we consider media coverage.
They seem to be making a gigantic effort to follow in the footsteps of their icon, the (left’s) Most Trusted Newsman, Walter Cronkite - who was instrumental in turning public opinion against the Viet Nam War, and along with Hanoi John and Jane against the American military.
Our “esteemed” media are following his Rules of Journalism:
1. If it makes the American Military look evil, run with it.
2. If it makes the enemy look good, run with it.
3. If there is a way to spin an incident to make it appear we are losing, run with it.
4. If it makes the Americans look good in any way, or might make it look as if we are winning, bury it.

[ggordon22]

This could go on for a while..;

When the WMD justification began to flag as efforts to find the weapons met with little success, the humanitarian angle was pushed. Obviously, the Bush government was willing to use any justification necessary to initiate a war with Iraq. And some good has come of that. But the emphasis for various war justifications were in constant flux, leading one to wonder what the precise purpose was at any given time.

As far as I can tell, the so-called links between al-Queda and Iraq amount to very little. There was an early (2001), damning story in the Observer that suggested a strong link, and a later (2003), more comprehensive and knowledgeable account, with the benefit of much more information, in the Observer that tells a very different story. If there are other links, I would be interested and appreciative.

Either we found WMDs or we didn't. Is it your contention that they were all spirited away before the war started? OK, maybe. Maybe Saddam hid nuclear warheads in an remote, undiscovered bunker. But let's use Occam's Razor just for a second, and assume the simplest explanation that there were not massive, lethal stockpiles of WMDs.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Imagine if we used that standard to try criminal cases. "Well, we have no evidence you did anything wrong. But we have no evidence you didn't do anything wrong. So just to be sure, we'll lock you up anyway."

[Qwinn]

"If there are other links, I would be interested and appreciative."

http://slate.msn.com/id/2091381/


Take a read of this, and the Weekly Standard article that it links to. Review the dozens of intelligence sources that support the Iraq/Al Qaeda connection. Then let me know if you still think there's "no evidence".

Qwinn

[ought-six]

"The Marines could have subdued Fallujah in days, if not hours, if they were given a free hand."

That's true. We could have conquered the entire country in three weeks. That was not our objective, however. Sometimes I wish it had been.

[isthisnickcool]

This is almost a "Bush is dumb" piece. Historically, the author turns out to be wrong.

[Qwinn]

"But let's use Occam's Razor just for a second, and assume the simplest explanation that there were not massive, lethal stockpiles of WMDs."

As has been stated many many times, effectively "massive, lethal" stockpiles capable of killing tens of thousands could have easily fit in the space of a two-car garage.

You're applying Occam's Razor? You think that the "simplest explanation" easily absorbs the fact that EVERY intelligence agency, the U.N., the Clinton Administration and basically every sane human being on the planet in February of 2003 was just... wrong?

You think that Occam's Razor explains the fact that the stockpiles we absolutely KNOW he had in 1995 and were being slowly destroyed by Richard Butler's crew until 1998 when inspectors were kicked out were never accounted for? That Saddam could have easily gotten rid of sanctions and restored his country's sovereignty and gotten rid of the no-fly zones, but instead he decided to destroy all his WMD in secret and not tell anyone so sanctions and no-fly zones would continue and he'd eventually be deposed? That the meticulous record-keepers in Iraq would have destroyed those 1995 stockpiles that were never accounted for and never even bothered to take evidence of it -at all-, when it was the only way to satisfy U.N. demands? That's the simplest answer?

What totally -burns- me when I hear the "Bush lied" argument is the ridiculous notion that Bush was saying something controversial. As if anyone was saying anything different. Every country in the U.N. agreed that he had them. Even Hans Blix agreed that he had still had never accounted for the stockpiles we knew from before. No one disagreed on their existence - they disagreed on what to do about it. That's why all this "Bush manipulated us" rhetoric is so nauseating. "Occam's Razor" might apply if this was one guy lying or mistaken - but EVERYONE ON THE PLANET was lying or mistaken is the "simplest" solution, and he -secretly- destroyed all those stockpiles even though doing publically would have met all UN demands and he could get sanctions lifted? Yeah. Okay. That's simple.

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

Lastly, you stated in your last post that the humanitarian issue was not pushed until we had entered Iraq and not found weapons.


"In a September 12 speech to the U.N. General Assembly, President Bush announced his government's intention to "work with the U.N. Security Council for the necessary resolutions" to ensure that Iraq granted unrestricted and unfettered access to weapons inspectors and complied with earlier resolutions. He warned, however, that in the event on non-compliance, "action will be unavoidable." He also called on the Iraqi government to "cease persecution of its civilian population," to "end all support for international terrorism," and to account for all personnel missing since the 1991 Gulf war. On the same day, the White House released a document on Iraq, entitled A Decade of Deception and Defiance, which detailed U.S. charges of "Saddam Hussein's defiance of the United Nations." The document said that this defiance included "among other things: continuing to seek and develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons[,] . . . brutalizing the Iraqi people, including committing gross human rights violations and crimes against humanity . . . [and] supporting international terrorism . . . ."

I see a whole LOT of references to human rights abuses in that September 2002 speech to the United Nations. That was way, way before we didn't find weapons in Iraq.

And then there's this.

"In its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2001, released in March 2002, the State Department said that the Iraqi government "committed numerous political and other extrajudicial executions" of suspected political opponents. It said that Iraq's human rights record "remained extremely poor" and that the authorities "continued to deny citizens the basic right to due process." In its Annual Report on International Religious Freedom for 2002, released in October, the State Department said that the government "continued its systematic and vicious policies against the Shi'as," severely restricting their religious practices and perpetrating "a brutal campaign of murder, summary execution, arbitrary arrest, and protracted detention against Shi'a religious leaders and adherents." The State Department, in its 2001 report on patterns of global terrorism, released in May, also said that the Iraqi government "continued to provide training and political encouragement to numerous terrorist groups, although its main focus was on dissident Iraqi activity overseas."

I see lots of references there too.

http://www.hrw.org/wr2k3/mideast4.html


Qwinn

[tonycavanagh]

re : That's true. We could have conquered the entire country in three weeks. That was not our objective, however. Sometimes I wish it had been.

The point is that conquering, invading, liberating the problem is the same at the end, pacification and stabilization.

How tough should we get, razing villages, towns, taking hostages, shooting without trial.

These methods have never worked in the past look at the partisan war in the the East.

The Soviet Union were never able to pacify Afghanistan with there huge arsenal and no one to hold them back, in fact the harder they tried the more radical the Afghanistan's became

The only way to win an insurgency is to show the population that there best future lies with you, what is needed are programs such as job creation. As the bible said the devil finds work for idle hands

any other methods just prolongs the conflict.

As for the Vietnam war American would say it lasted 10 years ask the Vietnamese it lasted thousands, first they fought against the Chinese who had colonised them for over a thousand years, then the French for a hundred then the Japanese, then the French then the Americans then Chinese and Cambodians.

That region was always in a state of war.

In fact the OSS forerunner of the CIA at the time warned the American State Department about getting involved in that tar baby.

Tony

[TigersEye]

Political labels morals and ethics are shackles that tie us to a black and white view of the world. I am liberal on some issues and conservative on others -- what does that make me? Liberal? Conservative? Do I have to choose?

Disregard the labels and simply choose which is right and which is wrong:

-Involuntary redistribution of wealth from producers to the poor. Moral and ethical?
- Claiming the right to kill a defenseless human for convenience sake. Moral and ethical?
- Banning firearms based on their cosmetic appearance disregarding functionality. Moral and ethical?
- Decrying the injustice of racial discrimination while ardently supporting racially based quotas for college admissions. Moral and ethical?
- Banning Christian prayer in schools on the basis of the 1st Amendment while supporting school programs that teach the tenets of and require participation in the practice of Muslim religious rituals in the name of 'tolerance.' Moral and ethical?
- Denouncing Pres. Bush's defense policy as 'preemptive' after 20+ years of unanswered terrorist attacks while praising Pres. Clinton's bombing and invasion of Serbia as humanitarian. Moral and ethical?

When we can move past our lockstep partisanship, maybe then we can truly start to have a meaningful deluge.

Now that I've removed the lockstep partisanship of political labels from the equation and put things in the concrete perspective of right and wrong the way is wide open for meaningful dialogue on these subjects. Any takers?

Conservatives say liberals are weak, immoral peaceniks, ...

Not really. Conservatives take note of the fact that most immoral peaceniks identify themselves as liberals and/or Democrats.

...liberals say conservatives are greedy, heartless warmongers.

If it is greedy to want to live a productive life and enjoy the fruits of that labor, if it is heartless to try to establish self-determinitive governments where ruthless tyrants have held sway and if a warmonger is someone who won't sit passively by while murderers murder then they are, for the most part, correct.

They both call each other anti-American.

I guess it all depends on what the definition of 'American' is. To some it means life, liberty and justice to others it means freedom from responsibility, tolerance of all people, acts and ideas regardless of whether they are harmful or not and a belief that one's own certainty of the truth bestows the right to impose that view on everyone else.

[abigail2]

Great posts Qwinn, thanks.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[MeekOneGOP]

We need to kick the Terrorists arses, wherever we may find them.

It is obvious to anyone with half a brain that America is a decent nation, and that terrorists are evil. When wrongdoing is found on our side, it is an anomaly. With terrorists it is their modus operandi. Yet CNN and their ilk continue to produce pieces spotlighting America’s errors in war, and not the daily routine of our bloodthirsty enemies.

President Bush had it right when he long ago called Iraq, Iran, and North Korea the “axis of evil.” We would have done well to quickly move as needed against these enemies. But indecision, weakness, and lack of preparation have caused the Iraq campaign to languish. Its overall slowness is killing whatever support and goodwill the administration may have had for future campaigns.

Huh ? What in the world is this?
Click here or on the pic to
see al-Qaeda et al at 'work'
WARNING!: Not for the queasy!
(Nevermind! This site's been shut down!)

[abigail2]

Maybe Patrick will...Helen Thomas!! Or you can!

[F.J. Mitchell]

That's what I would have said if I had the gift. Thank God for people like Mr. Patrick who can and will say it for us.

[F.J. Mitchell]

Mr. Rooney, F.J., Mr. Rooney!!!

[abigail2]

LOL!! I agree, it's good that we have people who can put into words what is in our hearts.