Afghanistan: A Lost Cause And A Hopeless Case

Afghanistan: A Lost Cause And A Hopeless Case
Blissfully ignorant and happy to stay that way
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

When a country has chosen to isolate itself from the remainder of the world in a Luddite fashion (taken to the "nth" degree) and huddle together in tribes while choosing to live in abject squaller as their ancestors did in the seventh and eighth centuries, plus perceive any offering to help them advance into a modern age as an insult to them and their god of choice, then any one, any country, attempting to help will ultimately find their efforts are utter failures and the people to whom they have offered assistance will return their magnanimous offers with out and out hatred and rage.

Such is the case with the US and Afghanistan today.

The people and the rulers of Afghanistan have shown us they are quite content living their savage, primitive, ignorant, corrupt lives, as the cesspool of the world.  Fine.  Let them.  Afghanistan isn't worth the life of a single American soldier, sailor, Marine, or airman.

It was my understanding, and I believe the understanding of the majority of Americans, that US military forces went into Afghanistan to destroy terrorist training camps, kill as many terrorists AS POSSIBLE, hopefully catch or kill Bin Laden and ... come home.

That didn't happen.

Things called "mission creep"  and ROE or "rules of engagement" prolonged and changed the US military's mission in Afghanistan until neither the Afghanis nor the Americans understood what was going on in that hell hole of a country.

American troops have been in that sludge pit for over ten years now.  Victory is nowhere in sight.  In fact, the entire Pentagon would be hard pressed to define what victory would even look like in Afghanistan.

Many decades ago, while in the US Army, I was taught to kill the enemy.  Not a single one of my trainers, not a single one of the cadre entrusted with turning me and my fellow recruits into soldiers said a cussed thing about "collateral damage."  Not ONE!  We were taught to do one thing and that was ... to kill the enemy.

There were no lawyers in the in the battle planning sessions.  What there were ... were soldiers taught to ... KILL THE ENEMY, period.

Then came Vietnam -- and President Lyndon Johnson and President Richard Nixon, both, decided neither would go down in the history books as the first American President to lose a war.  Added to the mix, the newly imported European philosophy called POLITICAL CORRECTNESS and we had a battle plan for failure in Vietnam.

Unfortunately, our leaders didn't learn a darned thing from the Vietnam experience. They continue to allow political correctness and lawyers to "advise" on war fighting missions and battles -- and even wars -- and we have not won a "WAR" since. 

No, I do not consider the first Iraq invasion a real war.  It was more a prolonged battle, which lasted a few days.  Of course, I side with those of the opinion that had we gone on to Baghdad -- THEN --and took out Saddam Hussein THEN -- we would not have had to go back to Iraq ten years later for a second round that accomplished little short of killing Hussein.

I can remember a time when the American military was taught to war-fight much as our Special Forces are today.  That may be because we did not have Special Forces troops then.  But the point is -- maybe we ought to train ALL American fighting men to conduct warfare at the level our Green Berets, Delta Force, SEALS and other Special Operators do. (I am referring to their focus, skill, and intensity in combat.)  Problem is,of course, unless the civilian commanders of the US Military allow them to use those skills to actually win wars, we STILL will not see victory again. 

What a shame!

That brings me full circle back to the Afghanistan problem. 

My friend, Alan Caruba, pointed out in a recent commentary that even Alexander the Great found Afghanistan just as screwed up as it is today and just as hard a nut to crack.  (You may recall that Genghis Khan had the same problem with a place we know today as Vietnam.  In fact  he wrote it off as "unconquerable.")  How little we learn from history -- and yes, it DOES repeat itself.  Different actors, different centuries, same ending to the play. 

I ask you to consider if General Douglas MacArthur or General George Patton were commanding the American forces in Afghanistan,  and Afghanistan's leader, Hamid Karzai, publicly defied their orders and made "DEMANDS" as he consistently does the current American commander's orders. How long do you think Mr. Karzai would be President of Afghanistan?  Better yet -- how long do you think there would BE a President of Afghanistan?
  
My, how times do change.  I'd remind you -- we haven't actually WON a war since the Second World War.  Wonder why???

Unless the United States is prepared to commit genocide in Afghanistan, there is simple no way to win a "war" there.  If we stay another ten years, we will be in no better position, militarily, than we are today.  

So far as democracy in Afghanistan --- the Afghanis are simple not capable of living in a democratic society.  It cannot be forced on them.  Teaching an imbecile astrophysics would be easier.  They have to want it.  Clearly, they do not.

Conclusion:  Stop pouring American blood and treasure into an open septic tank.  JUST STOP.  Bring our military out so they can prepare for the coming war with Iran.  

We should turn our backs and shake Afghanistan's dust off our boots -- and never look back.  

Finally, will someone please tell our Presidents to stop giving aid and comfort to our enemies by telling them, months in advance, when American troops will be leaving their country?  Even the dumbest of hill tribesmen understands that all he has to do is conserve his troops and supplies and wait 'til the Americans leave to resume his war.   This is elementary stuff -- and yet -- the civilian leader(s) of the US military cannot grasp this simple, simple, fact.

J. D. Longstreet

The Democrat’s “REAL” War Not So Real After All

The Democrat’s “REAL” War Not So Real After All

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet 

Americans have been accused of having the shortest collective memory of any people on earth.  Back when I was but a wee lad, I brushed that off.  Common sense told it was what we used to call in the advertising business  “Puffing.”  Puffing is rhetoric that is known to be untrue but is often used to make a point.  Back in the old days even the federal government allowed a limited amount of puffing in advertising.

Note that above I said the “Common sense told me….  .”  Problem is, these days common sense is certainly not common, and those expressing an opinion based on common sense are frowned upon and often mocked.

We have often stated the political left does not understand making war.  They have shown us time and again they do not understand the military, itself, nor how to apply military strength against an enemy of the US.   Their naiveté is such that they cannot grasp the simplest military tactic.  And they totally do not grasp the meaning behind the old saw:  “All’s fair in love and WAR.”

You may recall that we railed against the Obama Regimes’ public announcement of the date US troops would be withdrawn from Iraq.  You may also recall, we predicted that Iraq would slip back in to anarchy and eventually wind up under the control of another “strongman dictatorship” akin to the one headed by Saddam Hussein, which we overthrew at a rather high cost to America.  It was a cost, which Americans paid in blood and treasure.

Hardly had the dust (kicked up by American forces leaving Iraq) settled until the struggle for a new dictatorship was underway.  It is plain to everyone that our effort in Iraq was a total waste of time, effort, treasure, and blood. 

It is universally understood that when at war with a nation or a stateless rag-tag group of irregulars such as the Islamofacists we’ve been fighting for over ten years now, you do not telegraph your next move.  And you certainly do not openly inform them of the date you intend to leave the battlefield.

But Obama did.  Now Iraq is lost … again, and will most likely necessitate another war with Iraq at some point in the future.

That was bad enough.  But now Obama is doing it all again in Afghanistan.  The Taliban has openly boasted they have beaten America and will rebuild their forces and move to take over Afghanistan as soon as American forces are out of the country.  Unlike the Obama Regime, the Taliban is smart.  The Taliban has completely flummoxed the American Commander-in-Chief and, yes, they will have beaten the American military as a result of the catastrophically poor leadership from Obama. 

Obama’s awful leadership as a war commander has unnecessarily cost many lives of American military men and women and will, undoubtedly, cost even more as he compounds his mistakes on the battlefield with his blunders in foreign policy in the Middle East.

At the moment, while a very short fuse is burning on the powder keg in the Middle East, Obama is attempting to “talk” with Iran.

Only a fool would suppose that talks with Iran are anything more that a sham and an instrument to stall America -- AND Israel -- and buy more time for Iran to realize their dream of building an “Islamic Bomb,” (an atomic bomb), which they have every intention of using on both America and Israel.

Obama has proven to be Iran’s best weapon against the non-Islamic world.

The bottom line is this:  America is in deep trouble and needs a replacement for Obama who will deal a crushing blow against the terror nations of the Middle East.  It has been called a “Peace Through Victory” policy.

It is clear that anything less that a resounding victory is a total waste of time when dealing with the masters of hyperbole.  They can, and will, make anything less into a victory for themselves and spoon-feed that propaganda to their followers who will lap it up with gusto.  It will stoke their anger and enmity toward the US. 

As a lad I was taught to say little because it lends importance and gravitas to what you DO say.  For three years we have had a constant stream of talk from Obama, yea, even rivers of rhetoric flowing from our supposed leader.  His continuous talking has lent new meaning to the phrase: “talk is cheap.”

Our new leader must be a man of few words and more action, especially towards America’s enemies.  America is tired of towering talk and flowing phrases. It is past time to stop talking and starting doing.

J. D. Longstreet 

Obama's Wars

Obama’s Wars
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Remember how Obama continually stated how the war in Iraq was “The Wrong War.”

Remember how Obama remarked that President George W. Bush made a mistake by moving much of our war fighting capability from Afghanistan to Iraq?

Remember how Obama leaned on Bush for concentrating on Iraq instead of Afghanistan… over and over and over, ad infinitum?

Now: Remember how we told you that these wars would become Obama’s wars?

We remind you of all this because, just as we suspected, Obama has no clue how to run a war -- or how to relate neither to his generals nor to the military in general.

I have thought for sometime that the President of the United States, of a necessity, ought to have had military service in one branch, or the other, of the US Military. I still do. I think it ought to be a requirement, one of the qualifications for a would-be candidate seeking the office of the US Presidency.

So few members of the US government, these days, have had military service, of any kind, that there is only a weak connection between the government overall and the military.

When “The Brass,” the generals and admirals, begin to mock, criticize, or correct the Commander-in-Chief, even in public, that is evidence of a serious breakdown between the war fighters and their Commander-in-Chief. That is NEVER good.

When a Commander-in-Chief’s main objective is to withdraw the troops from a war, which is still raging, and concede defeat of the American military, that demonstrates a deep disrespect for the men and women in the ranks, in the foxholes, in the line of fire, in harm’s way. The men and women who have volunteered to put their lives on the line for America’s freedom all around the globe deserve more than that – MUCH more. They deserve a Commander-in-Chief who, even if he does not have their courage, at least respects them FOR their courage and their efforts for their fellow countrymen.

To put it bluntly, the US military deserves a much better Commander-in-Chief than Obama has been, is, or ever will be.

The revelation (in a recent publication) that Obama was seeking a way out of Afghanistan came as no surprise to this scribe. We have a leftist President and that is what leftists do when someone challenges his or her right to be free on a battlefield. They immediately head for the exits. They run.

The left, Obama among them, has no concept of military honor.” Having never served a single day in uniform, he cannot relate to those brave people who protect you and me with their lives. He simple doesn’t understand his soldiers, he doesn’t understand his generals, and he does not understand the war planners and war fighters. At some level, I suspect he fears them.

Obama’s ineptness in foreign affairs, as a whole, is staggering. Obama’s joyful visit with Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, a fellow socialist, told Americans all they needed to know about Obama’s distaste for our constitutional republic. Many conservatives understood immediately that he was on a mission to transform America into another Venezuela.

So what does this have to do with Obama and his wars? Practically everything. He is dealing with a part of the US government that is hugely politically conservative. I have come to believe that Obama fears the US military.

The US Military is filled with conservatives. A whopping portion of the US Military is made up of Southerners who are born with “Warrior” stamped, indelibly, on their heels. An important part of their DNA is “honor.” They don’t have to learn what honor is; they know from birth what is expected of them -- to protect the honor of their family, their country, their fellow soldiers, and finally, themselves. Too, they understand the oath they take when entering the military is a solemn and sacred oath to protect the constitution and everything they love and care from ALL enemies foreign AND DOMESTIC. They also understand there is no expiration date on that oath.

It is no small thing when the leader of those military men and women places their honor in jeopardy by seeking a way to “cut and run” in the face of the enemy!

An army MUST respect its leader. It must trust his leadership. It is his command that may cost a soldier his or her life. When the troops lose respect for their leader it is a sad and a dangerous thing. Oh, they will obey his commands, but they will do so grudgingly. Evidence of that can be seen even in the US military’s top brass today.

When that lack of respect for their leadership infiltrates the troops on the frontlines, casualties begin to go up. We see that today in Afghanistan.

NO SOLDIER WANTS TO BE THE LAST SOLDIER KILLED IN ANY WAR! Now that Obama has set a date for withdrawal of the troops from Afghanistan, the enemy feels emboldened because they know that US troops will psychologically go into a defensive mode. Suddenly, the advantage in the war swings to the enemy’s side. We see that, today in Afghanistan, as well.

Obama’s Wars are not going well. In Iraq, just about everyone outside the Obama White House understands that as soon as US troops finally leave Iraq, it will be taken over by another strongman dictator and revert back to its former repressive totalitarian condition. In Afghanistan, we know the Taliban will move, almost instantly, to re-establish their control of the Afghanis and the drug trade.

Frankly, I do not believe the Obama Regime cares, one way or the other. All the evidence tells us Obama just wants out of both theatres of war. As Commander-in-Chief he is demoralizing our troops. As President, he is emboldening our enemies and demoralizing our allies.

As a wartime president Obama is pitifully lacking. But, then again, that can be said of all other aspects of his presidency, as well. Pitiful.

J. D. Longstreet

2010’s Top Anxieties.... National Anxiety Center

2010’s Top Anxieties
National Anxiety Center Lists Top Ten Fears

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Founded in 1990, The National Anxiety Center, a clearinghouse for information about “scare campaigns” designed to influence public opinion and policy, has periodically issued a list of the top anxieties Americans will experience in the coming year.

“The list,” says founder Alan Caruba, “is subjective; based on an analysis of the past year’s headlines and anticipated events. It incorporates on-going, often long term concerns that Americans have expressed.”

1. Out of Control Government Spending. It is evident to everyone except the White House and Congress that America cannot spend its way out of the deepest recession since the Great Depression, but both have embraced programs that will increase the level of taxation facing Americans, while engaging in “stimulus” programs that only stimulate more anxiety. The lack of job creation in the private sector will be the major anxiety Americans encounter in 2010.

2. Iran. It is evident to Americans and the world that Iran is intent on acquiring nuclear weapons that can be used in a missile attack on Israel and which can reach Europe and other nations throughout the Middle East. The only option available is an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities and there is considerable anxiety regarding its timing and outcome.

3. Afghanistan War. Eight years after the initial effort to rid Afghanistan of the Taliban, Americans are war weary and increasingly wondering about the benefit of further involvement, its costs, and the possibility that leaving would embolden Islamist enemies there, in Iraq, and worldwide. The Middle East remains a powder keg of instability.

4. The Economy. There is anxiety concerning how long it will take for the American economy to recover from the housing and credit bubble created by Congressional programs such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. No steps have been taken to eliminate these programs and, indeed, other federal programs have been introduced to assist imprudent mortgage holders already in default.

5. Inflation. The raising of the nation’s debt limit, the printing of vast amounts of paper currency by the Federal Reserve, and other comparable actions portend an inflation of prices and a possible default. Moody’s Investor Service has warned both the U.S. and British governments they are in peril of losing their triple-A ratings.

6. Medicare. Medicare, like Social Security, will be insolvent within a few years and Americans of all ages are worried, not only about solutions to this prospect, but about proposals to vastly expand Medicare at the most inopportune time.

7. Illegal Immigration and Amnesty. The drain on the nation’s economy and problems associated with illegal immigration, now estimated to number more than 12 million, as well as yet recently proposed amnesty program continue to worry Americans.

8. Education. The continued failure of the nation’s school systems to meet international standards of scholastic achievement has resulted in the decline in the ability of American’s children’s to acquire basic skills and the knowledge required to compete in a global economy.

9. Diet and Health. The growing number of overweight and obese Americans is a personal and national concern for the overall health of everyone struggling with weight problems and their potential for diabetes and other diseases.

10. American Culture. The increasing vulgarity found in films, on television, in music, fashion, and other elements of American culture remains a concern for many, particularly as it affects the younger generation.

“The good news is that more Americans are no longer concerned about ‘global warming’ and carbon dioxide, as they become aware that the claims justifying these fears are based on deliberately falsified computer models and the fact that the nation and the planet are now a decade into a natural cooling cycle,” says Caruba.

“2010, the end of the first decade of the 21st century, is likely to be seen in retrospect as a tipping point that will determine either a return to traditional standards of fiscal prudence,” says Caruba, “or will plunge the nation and the world into a Depression of cataclysmic proportions.”

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Caruba, an author, business and science writer, resides in South Orange, N.J. The National Anxiety Center maintains a website at http://www.anxietycenter.com/. Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/.

How Paper Tigers Get to be Paper Tigers! ... J. D. Longstreet

First published in January, 2008.

How Paper Tigers Get to be Paper Tigers!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

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The argument rages among Americans whether we should take the leash off our Armed Forces and allow them to mop the desert and mountains up with the terrorists, or put it off in hope they will learn to love us and drop their warlike ways toward us.

If you have stopped laughing, at that last phrase above, you may wish to consider the following:

Historians tell us that when the 13 American colonies, of Great Britain, went to war for their Independence, from the mother country, roughly 1/3 of Americans were for the war… 1/3 of Americans were against the war… and … roughly 1/3 of Americans could not have cared less, one way or the other. Yet all benefited from the successful conclusion of that war… as has the entire world.

I was born before the Second World War. My formative years were the war years. Then, as I entered my teens, the US became embroiled in the Korean Conflict. Then, as I donned the uniform of my country, the secret war in Vietnam, in which the US had been involved since the 50’s, (to one degree or the other) went public. So, by the time I was a middle-aged man, I had experienced three wars.

Now, I mention this only as a means to express the fact that my experience has left me totally puzzled at the attitude of those Americans who are afraid of war. I cannot fathom the depth of that fear.

Nobody likes war! Well, maybe some do. But generally speaking, the vast majority of humans don’t like it. Unfortunately, war is a part of living on this planet and it will continue to be as long as the earth holds together and continues it’s spinning journey around the sun. It is the way of things.

Americans must get over this “scardy-cat” mentality and attack the future as we used to do. If that means we have to go to war to realize one, or another, of our goals, then so be it.

Look, great nations don’t quaver when a threat to its security is made by anyone. If they do, believe me, it will not be a great nation for long. Once that chink in a nation’s armor is made visible, it is the open door through which all that nation’s enemies will seek entry.

Here in America, our weak link, our chink in the national armor, is the Political Left. Their quavering has caused more deaths of American civilians, and American servicemen, and servicewomen, than any other single cause. A country cannot hesitate when confronted with danger. It must reply to that threat immediately and with irresistible force. Half-hearted military forays into to the homelands of our enemies only leads to unnecessary American deaths. The sooner America attacks, with overwhelming force, the sooner the battles, and the war, are over and battle deaths are minimized.

Unfortunately, the American Left has control of our Public School System and our institutions of “so-called” higher learning. They are turning out carbon copies of themselves every year. With every graduating class the future of America, as a great nation, a free nation, grows dimmer. As the Scriptures teach us: “As the twig is bent, so growth the tree!”

I have advocated the abolishment of the American public school system for some time now. Home schooling, and private schooling, is one way to win our children back and to secure a future for America. Better, still, I think, would be schools controlled locally and/or by the state. There should be, absolutely, no federal involvement in our public school systems and teacher’s unions should be banned.

This is not the America I knew, neither as a boy, nor as a young man. The America I knew bowed to no one. We were a great nation. We were a great people. We feared no man. We had confidence in ourselves that we could do anything, go anywhere, and be anything we wanted. Then the cancer of Leftist Politics took hold. And like the cancer, that it is, it has eaten away America’s soul and her will to live. It has robbed us of a future as a great, free, people.

So, if you have been asking yourselves why America hesitates these days, in my humble, or not so humble opinion, (as you choose), the answer lies above in the text of this post.

Someone has said that we are the first generation, which will not leave America a better country than we found it. Unfortunately, I must agree with that!

J. D. Longstreet

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(Ed's note: Yeah, I know the title should read "How Paper Tigers Become Paper Tigers"... but... I like the ring of the phraseology in "How Paper Tigers Get To Be Paper Tigers." So, It remains! Have a GREAT DAY!!! ... JDL)

The Greatest Generation Should be Ashamed of Us Today

The Greatest Generation Should be Ashamed of Us Today
America No Longer Has the WILL to WIN!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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As I considered President Obama’s words concerning the war in Afghanistan a few days ago, I found myself embarrassed by them. To realize Obama had no intention of ‘winning” a war in Afghanistan, and that the word victory was never used in his entire speech, it became clear to me that Obama was only concerned with “ending” the war in Afghanistan -- not winning it. Now, let’s be clear about something. The United States could/can win a war in Afghanistan. The United States could/can win a war anywhere it chose/chooses.

Just nuke ‘em.

No, I am NOT KIDDING. Had we nuked the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan when we were sure Osama bin Laudin was hiding there, we would have been finished with the never ending search for him and we would have sent a powerful message to our enemies -- everywhere -- to attack the US is to bring unimaginable death and destruction down on the attackers and their loved ones. The price is not worth it.

The Commander-in-Chief could have ordered it done -- and -- in my opinion, SHOULD have ordered it done. We had the means and the wherewithal to do it. What we did not have was THE WILL!

Today as I think back to 1941 and the sneak attack by the Japanese on the US Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, I thank God that we had men of fortitude in charge of this country. Men of courage stepped forward and offered themselves, their futures, and their very lives to win a total victory over the Japanese and, as it turned out, the Germans, as well.

Today, as the few survivors of that great conflict watch America circle the drain, how sad they must be. They must be deeply depressed to watch the wishy-washy, limp-wristed, leadership of this nation apologize for being the world’s only superpower. To watch a President of the United States actually BOW to a Japanese leader must make them physically sick to their stomachs. To watch the American leader acting more as a naive boy, than a man, on the world stage has to be a bitter pill to swallow for the remnant of the Greatest Generation.

I have a similar reaction. Born just before the US was compelled, by events that took place 68 years ago today, to join the Second World War, my formative years were molded in that worldwide crucible of death and destruction. Yes, like so many of my generation who were mere children during that conflagration, I readily admit that it left me with scars and with definite ideas about freedom’s cost and the necessary sacrifices a nation MUST be prepared to make to preserve her freedom and liberty.

Firebombing the enemy's cities and killing over a hundred thousand men, women, and children to break the enemy's will to fight, was necessary, -- and they did it! Dropping a nuclear bomb on an enemy city to force them to surrender was necessary, and so -- they did it! Dropping a second nuclear bomb on a second enemy city, to drive home the point that we were relentless and had the will to kill as many of the Japanese and/or the Germans as was necessary to compel them to the surrender table was necessary, -- and they did it.

Horrendous? Yes! Necessary? ABSOLUTELY! Did it take courage? YES! More than you or I will ever know-- if we are lucky. But with current events as they are, with Islamofacists seeking the death of every American man, woman, and child, WE, YOU and I, MUST be prepared to take whatever necessary steps are called for to insure they fail. If that requires the use of nuclear weapons to completely wipe out a terrorist nest in the caves and mountains of the Middle East, then WE, YOU and I, MUST BE PREPARED TO USE THEM! I submit to you that the current leadership of the United States is NOT PREPARED to take the steps that may be necessary to insure the continuation of the freedom and the liberty those wonderful men and women of The Greatest Generation offered everything they were -- and everything they ever hoped to be -- to preserve for us.

My personal journey to becoming a conservative began at Pearl Harbor. My philosophy on politics had its birth on the morning of December 7th, 1941.

It was a beautiful Sunday morning in Paradise when ......... ......... .........

Around 8 AM, 68 years ago today, the Japanese swooped in, out of a brilliant blue sky over Hawaii, and bombed the port of Pearl Harbor to smithereens. Much of the muscle of our Navy was destroyed. Two thousand and four hundred US servicemen were killed.

I was seven months old.

In the next four years, as my consciousness grew, I became aware of all the activity around me. I saw soldiers in uniform. I saw my grandmother crying when the telegram came that her baby boy had been "Killed in Action" somewhere in Europe.

And finally, I remember guns being fired into the air, people running through the streets of our little South Carolina town, hugging and kissing each other. I remember folks saying: “It’s over!” And it was. But it left an indelible mark on my family and an equally deep and indelible mark on me.

Those first 4 years of my life, the formative years, were experienced under intense stress. I learned the cost of war right from the beginning stages of my life. I lost one uncle, in Belgium (the Ancestral homeland) another was machine gunned through both thighs and lay in a freezing stream in France, all night, until American troops found him the next morning. The icy water of that frozen stream saved his life. He suffered ”shell-shock” (referred to as "Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome" today) the remainder of his life. A summertime thunderstorm became an instant German artillery barrage. He would race for cover. The flashbacks were ever with him.

Others of my family were in the Pacific fighting the Japanese. They, too, came home with stories of Japanese Kamikaze planes hitting their ships and, in one case, finding a woman… yes, I said a woman, pilot in one of them! She was alive. For whatever reason, the plane with the bomb attached, did not explode.

When we could get those veterans to talk, which was not often, I was spellbound by the stories of their experience. I soaked it up like a sponge.

You see, I learned, both from personal experience, and the second hand experience of my family members, who were in the hell of the Second World War, what war really is. And, I learned that you have no choice when the enemy brings the war to your doorstep, you must fight back, and you must prevail, no matter the cost.

Today, we find ourselves in another war, which was brought to our doorstep. In doing so, the enemy killed many more people with their sneak attack than the Japanese did with their sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.

I don’t suffer fools lightly. My generation shares that quality. Today we have people in our government who are advocating a policy of retreat for the United States in our war against terrorist in the Middle East. It does not seem to matter to those folks, that an enemy which has brought war to our shores, will not quit, and go home, just because we do. They will follow us back to our own country and continue to wage war against us here... in our land.

It makes no difference how many medals hang from a man’s uniform or suit jacket. For all the times he was right, represented by those medals, there are times when he is wrong.

Had the United States listened to the “doves” after Pearl Harbor, I would most likely be writing this missive in German rather than English. It was that serious then, and it is that serious now.

So, as we think, today, of the men and women who gave everything they had, including their lives, to insure that you and I would have a free country, let us think of the men and women serving today for the same reason.

On December 7th, 1941 the Japanese, and the Germans, wanted nothing less than the conquest of the world. Today the Islamofacists want the same thing.

You have to ask yourself… as an American… are you going to stand down, ground your weapon, and allow this evil from the deepest, darkest, depths of hell, to take your country? That is the question all Americans must ask themselves. For, understand, they will not stop with America. Once America is out of the way, the remainder of the world will fall to them as easily as dominoes.
The Men and Women (Caps Intentional) of 1941 had to ask themselves the same question. We had better thank Almighty God they answered in the affirmative.

Today, we honor them for it. But they will tell you, those who survive to this day, that there was no real question about what the people of America would do. It was simply understood that freedom was far to precious to allow the forces of evil to take it from us. And so they marched forth to stop it and preserve this country for you and me. And they did!

We can never thank them enough. Not only did they save America, they saved the world!

Are we, as Americans, prepared to give up our freedom today after that generation gave so much of their blood to preserve it for us?

I pray to God that America will finally awaken to the danger that threatens us and take the painful steps, whatever they might be, to preserve this country, and again, the world.



J. D. Longstreet

The Middle East: Reporting an Enigma ... Alan Caruba

The Middle East: Reporting an Enigma

By Alan Caruba

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When President Obama delivers a speech on why he is going to send more thousands of U.S. troops and spend more billions on the eight-year-old conflict in Afghanistan, it would be a good idea to better understand why so much of what is reported from the Middle East suffers a great disconnect from the truth.

In 1998, Joris Luyendijk , a Dutch student who had studied Arabic at Cairo University for a year, was offered a job as a Middle East correspondent for a Dutch news agency despite having no experience as a reporter. What followed was his real education about the Middle East and the way it is presented to the West by the news media.

His book about that experience, “People Like Us: Misrepresenting the Middle East” was initially published in the Netherlands in 2006 and has since then it has been translated and published in Hungary, Italy, Denmark and Germany. In October an English edition was published by Soft Scull Press, an imprint of Counterpoint, a Berkeley, California publisher.

Having begun my career as a journalist, I was interested to learn what Luyendijk had taken from his years hopping around the Middle East before and after 9/11 and during the two Iraq wars waged by the U.S. to resolve a problem called Saddam Hussein.

For anyone digesting the news from his morning newspaper or watching it on television, suspecting that it might be biased or wrong, this book that focuses on reporting from the Middle East is a revelation because Luyendijk strives mightily to expose the way the news is manipulated by all the parties involved.

Covering his experiences from 1998 to 2003, the author is refreshingly candid, admitting that, despite his student year in Cairo, he had little or no real understanding of Egypt or the rest of the Middle East.

There is, however, one thing that anyone can understand. The Middle East is composed of dictatorships and the sole purpose of each one is to survive. To do that, their people must be constantly indoctrinated and fearful. That is made possible by rendering them, individually and as a group, powerless. There simply is no such thing as justice or the opportunity to express an opinion in opposition to the leader.

Significantly, those living in the Middle East cannot make an informed judgment of what is occurring around them because they operate two points of view that are very real to them. First is a widely accepted sense of victimhood, and, second, they believe that Israel, ultimately, is manipulating the entire world!

Conversely, Americans who have no contact with the Middle East beyond the headlines and snapshots of bloodshed and warfare are comparably unable to make informed judgments about a people who differ among themselves in many ways.

The Middle East is very different from the West and Luyendijk believes that few in the West are even vaguely aware that those who live there live in a parallel universe; one that functions by the rules of ruthless dictatorships, by tribes, and by a religion that is hostile to all others.

Democracy is not likely to take root in the Middle East and this can be traced to the prevailing religion of the region, Islam. The only reason democracy occurred in Turkey is because the founder of the modern state, Ataturk, isolated Islam from the conduct of governance and that has been backed up by an army that has, thus far, ensured the separation.

The only other democracy in the Middle East is, of course, Israel. Lebanon’s effort has been steadily undermined by Hezbollah, Islamists who are an instrument of Iran.

The news coverage by Western reporters tends not to reflect the fact that Western powers have long supported the gaggle of monarchs and despots in the Middle East, at least until they saw fit to replace them. For this and for its interventions, the people of the Middle East quite naturally see the West as part of the oppression under which they live.

“EVERYONE IS AGAINST US. It’s banged into ordinary Arabs through the media and their education from a very young age, so don’t expect them to be pro-western.”

For a Western journalist, that means having to operate in societies where their reports are closely monitored and where access to events repeatedly reveal how staged they are, whether it’s a mass rally or whether it is those they interview who know that one wrong word can get them imprisoned, tortured, and even killed. The journalists, too, are at risk.

The “truth” in such a place is an impossibility. The “truth” does not exist for those who live in the Middle East and is carefully filtered by the Western news agencies that cover it for people who live thousands of miles away. The task is to report on an enigma.

Citing a group trip to Saddam’s Baghdad arranged by the Cairo Foreign Press Association, Luyendijk says, “It was complete madness. The secret-service minders practically sat on our laps. They’d regularly leave us waiting in lobbies for hours on end without any explanation, and then shove us into taxies for an excursion.”

Though a novice journalist in 1998, Luyendijk quickly “abandoned the idea that you would know what was going on in the world if you followed the news generated by the twenty dictatorships of the region “or reported by the correspondents for Western news agencies.

”There were virtually no reliable and verifiable figures or statistics against which I could I could (report) in a broader perspective.” Information is power and it was controlled by the dictators. The foreign press was and is a pawn in the game.

“When something big happens, the (Western) public wants to know things that the correspondent can’t find out.” The result is a lot of nebulous speculation or regurgitation of previous news.

While those in the West are accustomed to fairly rapid progress, the Middle East defies this because the currents that determine events are rooted in events that may have occurred a hundred or a thousand years earlier.

The hatreds, the lack of trust, the resentments, the rivalry for power, the need to survive, all jostle together in an impenetrable jumble in which one young, Dutch reporter found common human elements, “people like us”, but people whose protests subject them to arrest and execution.

Alan Caruba

*********************

Alan Caruba writes a daily post at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.

Every Day is Groundhog Day in the Middle East ... Alan Caruba

Every Day is Groundhog Day in the Middle East

By Alan Caruba

*****************

In the movie, “Groundhog Day”, the main character wakes up day after day, trapped in the same events, desperately looking for a way out of that living nightmare. It’s a very good metaphor for the Middle East.



Here are some quotes from a book whose title I will reveal in a moment:



“The only truly transcendent law in the Middle East is that of unintended consequences.”



“Nation-building and the redressing of historic wrongs were in the air…”



“His fighters secured control of key rivers, recaptured Kut, and on (date withheld) stormed victoriously into Baghdad. Still undecided was how this famous city—and, indeed, most of Mesopotamia—would now be governed.”



“I suppose we have underestimated the fact that this country is really an inchoate mass of tribes which can’t as yet be reduced to any system. The Turks didn’t govern and we have tried to govern…and failed.”



And finally “Our armies have come into your cities and lands not as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators.”



All this and more was said in the 1920s by British imperialists. If it sounds like things being said by Americans, then you must assume that America has been repeating all the mistakes of Great Britain in the exact same places.



The book being quoted is “Kingmakers: The Invention of the Modern Middle East” by Karl E. Mayer and Shareen Blair Brysac ($18.95, W.W. Norton, softcover) and its five-hundred pages are devoted to the extraordinary personalities of the 1920s who, believing it was Great Britain’s duty was to bring civilization to India, Africa, and the Middle East, devoted themselves to “Pax Britannia”, the rule of distant colonies representing a fourth of the world’s population.



The book is a reminder that whatever passes for modernity in the Middle East has generally been imposed by the process of European colonization in quest of its oil and other riches to fatten the profits of various British, French, and American business enterprises such as the Suez Canal and the oil companies.



Left to themselves the polyglot of tribes would never have experienced anything resembling modernization.



Afghanistan today would look very much the same to the earliest invaders and explorers who passed through it. No roads. No hospitals. Few schools. No jobs except raising poppies for the heroin trade or serving in the army or police. Men raised from youth to fight anyone and everyone. Pushtuns, Tajiks, Hazarus, Uzbeks, Turkmen, and Qizilbash.



The Middle East had been ruled by the Turkish Ottoman Empire for centuries—from Egypt to Persia. Going back even further in history, the region was no stranger to European invasions. The Crusades were a response against the Islamic invaders that at one point had laid siege to Vienna.



As the authors note, “In his history of Jerusalem, the Israeli writer Amos Elon calculates that over four millennia the Holy City has known ‘twenty ruinous sieges, two intervals of total destruction, eighteen recent reconstructions, and at least eleven transitions from one religion to another.” In 1967 visitors could find the remnants of “Roman encampments, Crusader castles, Turkish parapets, and British pillboxes.”



To suggest, for example, that after more than sixty years of Israeli national sovereignty that Arab neighbor nations (and Iran) have the slightest intention of allowing it to exist is to ignore the history of centuries old intolerance directed against both Christian and Jew.



Following World War One, England and France divided the remains of the Ottoman Empire that had chosen to side with Germany. It would have died sooner or later of its own dead weight, but it was Sir Percy Zachariah Cox who would take out “a map and a pencil to draw the boundary between Iraq and the Nejd (now Saudi Arabia). The borders with Syria and Transjordan were defined similarly.”



There were Arab leaders, but they were generally the pawns of the great powers, frequently assassinated or deposed. With some exceptions, the nations of the Middle East continue to be ruled by monarchs and despots.



As the British Empire shrank in the wake of World War Two and American power grew only one thing is clear. Neither of these imperial powers had any clue, nor way of dealing with the Middle East’s regressive Islamic fanaticism that remains a ceaseless threat to Western civilization. And, as in past times, the debates rage about staying in or getting out.



Every day in the Middle East is Groundhog Day.



Alan Caruba writes a daily post at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/. A business and science writer, author, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.



© Alan Caruba, October 2009

***********************

Conservative+US+Middle-East+Mistake+Afghanistan+Britain+Iran+Iraq+Islam

Is The Cost of Freedom Too High? Totalitarian Socialism is Much Cheaper!

Is The Cost of Freedom Too High? Totalitarian Socialism is Much Cheaper!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
************************************************

I’ve thought about it for a long while now and I have concluded that the US needs to recant its pledge not to be the first to use the atom bomb in a war/conflict. I mean, hey, we did it, already. Two of them, in fact! Perhaps you remember August 1945 and a place called Japan??? I do!

Look, we are allowing ourselves to be tied up in these little brushfire wars in Afghanistan, and Iraq, when both could be ended by a flight of B-2’s and a few nukes.

What about the problem in Iran? Mr. Ahmadinejad wants the atomic bomb? Well, I say give it to him, several, actually, delivered from the bomb bay of a B-2, or B-52 bomber.

Then… the little squirt in North Korea, we could provide a demonstration of what a REAL atomic blast looks like… up close and personal!

For those of you screaming at the computer and pulling your hair out about now, YES, I know it is extreme. But understand this: the whiners and those who bitch, and moan, about the war in Afghanistan going badly, and those who force our armed forces to fight with one, or both, hands tied behind their backs are, quite frequently, the same people. They are quickly pushing the US into a corner. A corner, from which, the only means of escape is to lash out in all directions. The most effective way to do that is with our atomic arsenal.

I hear the “national scolds” complaining that we have now been in Iraq longer than it took for us to fight the Second World War. Well, actually, that’s true, but we have less KIA’s than we had the day we hit the beach in Normandy!

So, you want to win the war, any war? Use the nuke arsenal. It would be quick, efficient, very effective, and there would be no question as to the victor. Leave the offending country a radioactive pile of debris for the next few thousand years.

We have the material, the methods, and the means to take out any country causing trouble for us in the world. I must tell you, those atomic weapons, as costly as they are, would be more cost efficient than placing a couple hundred thousand troops on the ground, in a troublesome region, and supporting those troops while forcing them to fight handicapped. And that is what we are doing, currently!

Hey, I’m tired of all the bellyaching, all the bitching, and moaning, coming from the very people who could not screw up enough courage to defend their own shadow. I’m tired of good, loyal, American men and women spilling their blood and laying down their lives for a whole segment of our society who have no respect, nor love, for the country nor their fellow Americans. I’m tired of the useful idiots our enemies find, in abundance, in our governing bodies in Washington.

Say what you will, my fellow Americans, but we have become two nations, again, much as this country split in the 1860’s. I’m not talking about a North/South split… I’m talking about a “Love America/Hate America” split. The last presidential election did nothing to bring us closer together. In fact, it appears Obama’s election has driven us even farther apart. We are hopelessly split apart and the Union, though it appears as one on paper, in reality… it no longer exists. Neither side has any interest, at all, in rejoining the other.

The “Hate America” and the “Blame America First” crowds (one and the same) have sapped this country of its will to survive. Any medical practitioner will tell you that when the will to survive is gone… all is lost.

The story is told of a Confederate general, during the darkest days of the American “War Between the States,” sending a dispatch to the Confederate Commanding General, Gen Robert E. Lee. In the dispatch, the Southern general is said to report that he and his troops were cut off, vastly outnumbered, the causality rate was extremely high, they were without provisions, and their ammunition was all but gone. In summation that Southern cavalier told Gen. Lee he would do the only thing left for him, and his men, to do. So, he said, they would attack, at dawn, with everything they had at their disposal!

That is the America I was born into. That is the America I grew up in. That is the America for which I wore the uniform of the US Army, and that is the America, which does not exist anymore.

I am frustrated with “mealy-mouthed” Americans who will accept second place. In my America, second place didn’t exist… in anything. Like the US Marine Corp, the improbable we did right away. The impossible took us just a tad longer.

I have been chided for stating that the US losses in Iraq are well within the acceptable range. Look, you don’t go to war if deaths are not acceptable. Rather, you bow your head and bare your neck to the chains of slavery. If you would remain free you must be willing to pay the price. The price for freedom is high. It is paid in the blood of patriots… the men and women of our Armed Forces.

I am heartsick at what this nation has become. America is now a cesspool of deviancy, mediocrity, cowardice, socialism, secularism, hedonism, and, regardless of what Obama says we are without hope.

Somewhere, about the late 1960’s to early 1970’s, Americans, like the shirker, in the Bible, decided to bury our talents for safekeeping rather than risk them in order to have them grow and benefit the country. Now we are paying the price for our reticence to risk everything for each other.

We are growing apart as a people. Our national conversation has grown shrill and vulgar. We can’t communicate with each other. When we try, it turns into a shouting match. We have become course, crass, and without sophistication. Our gentility is gone.

Finally, we have painted ourselves into a corner now -- a corner, which threatens to deny us even our own survival. Only drastic action will save us… and, unfortunately, many Americans do not wish to be saved and those who do are not interested in saving those who don’t. We are feeding upon ourselves.

I began this piece by pointing out where this attitude of mediocrity has gotten America in its war-fighting capability and the cost to recover that capability. Atomic Bombs will certainly win for us on the battlefields, but they will do nothing to salvage our land.

American men and women in uniform are growing tired of sacrificing their blood, limbs, and lives, for fellow Americans who actually want them to lose! And why would they not? They have grown distrustful of their Commander-in-Chief who is plainly dragging his feet while trying to make a decision on whether or not to allow those American fighting men to have the resources they say they need to win the war in Afghanistan. Once before, in Somalia, a President (of the same political party) denied a request from the commanders on the ground and it cost the lives of at least 18 US service men and, ultimately, resulted in the withdrawal of US troops from that troubled land – and -- emboldened America’s enemies to such a degree that they flew plane loads of people into skyscrapers in our greatest city killing thousands of innocent Americans. The trust of many of our service men and women for their fellow Americans has been forever shattered. When the time comes for them to send their young sons and daughters to war for the US … will they do it? Can you blame them?

When a nations vision is forced to dissipate, that nation is doomed. When a nation’s hopes, and dreams, and aspirations, are shelved because social programs, such as socialized medicine, take precedence over that national vision… the death knell has sounded. When a nation sends it’s national treasure, its sons, and daughters, into harm’s way… and abandons them, that nation has lost its soul. Make no mistake about it. Many US troops in Afghanistan are beginning to question if their Commander-in-Chief has abandoned them.

Here are the words of the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, a man even his own party would seek to impeach today:

“The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.”… Pres. John F. Kennedy

Kennedy also said:

“There are risks and costs to a program of action, but they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction”

President Harry Truman, the 33rd President of the US, said the following:

“America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination, and unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.”

Nowadays, the men mentioned above would be accused of insisting on “staying the course”. They would be ridiculed and hounded from office… even by their own Democrat Party.

That, Dear Reader, is how far we have sunk!

J. D. Longstreet

**********************

America+Socialism America+Socialism+Apathy+Obama+Afghanistan+Iraq+Iran+Military+Freedom

Afghanistan: Obama's War! by: J. D. Longstreet

Afghanistan: Obama’s War!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

*******************************

As much as I dislike doing this, I am going to offer President Obama some sound advice, which I fully expect him to totally ignore. That advice is: “Get the hell out of Afghanistan!”

Just recently I published a piece, on my own blog, by my friend, Alan Caruba, calling for the same thing. Getting US troops out of Afghanistan is just another thing Alan and I agree on.

Maybe it is a generational thing. Both Alan and myself were in the military and both of us experienced what the wrong war in the wrong place can do to a military and to a country and we don’t want to see our country go through that again.

Having said all of the above, I fully expect President Obama to maintain US troops in Afghanistan and stand-by as they are chewed-up by twos and threes until, we have a death toll of Americans rivaling that of the Vietnam debacle.

Here’s the thing. We cannot win in Afghanistan.

I am a realist. I look at the facts and choose my position on a subject based upon those facts. I do not interject optimism into my decision-making in so far as taking a position or forming an opinion. When one does that and applies that process to the war effort in Afghanistan one can come up with only one inescapable truth -- and that is, we cannot win in Afghanistan.

This is not defeatism. Understand that. Of COURSE, the American military could, fairly easily, wipe that country off the map in short order. But, what would we have gained? As far as I can see, nothing of value to the US would be gained. Occupation of the country would, it seems to me, be nothing short of another decades long shooting war with our military bases becoming “Fort Apaches” in enemy territory. None of this takes into consideration the cost in dollars to the American economy.

The question, then, for our current President and Commander - in - Chief, is: why continue to feed our young men into a sausage grinder, such as Afghanistan, knowing full well that at some point, down the road from now, the Commander- in- Chief, in 2013, or beyond, will be ordering their withdrawal from that hell-hole? Saving face for Mr. Obama, or any President, is certainly not enough reason to spill the precious blood of American soldiers.

Afghanistan is not really a country. Not REALLY. Frankly, I’m not sure WHAT it is, but a country - it ain’t. It is sort of a no-man’s land with a conglomeration of tribes and/or clans usually at each other’s throat over some sort of “slight.” Their major industry is dope. Yep! “DOPE.” They grow beautiful fields of opium poppies -- and they sell it on the world market -- both the legal market and the black market. Get between them and their dope money and you are asking for serious trouble.

Afghanistan’s next-door neighbor, Pakistan, is where the serious threat to America lies. Pakistan already has nuclear weapons. Pakistan's Nuclear Weapons Program was established as far back as1974. Earlier this year, some American officials expressed concern that Pakistan is enlarging its nuclear weapons facilities. They fear that Pakistan is moving to increase its stockpile of fissile material. That would allow them to develop more destructive atomic weapons. Some experts are concerned that Pakistan may be in the early stages of creating thermonuclear weapons. Thermonuclear weapons are far more destructive and could be more easily developed to fit inside warheads.

As much as I hate the thought, it is entirely possible, and highly probable, that we will awaken one morning, in the not too distant future, to the news that Pakistan has been overrun by some terrorist organization, and those terrorists are in possession of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. In fact, this is the ONLY reason, I can conceive of, for American troops to remain in Afghanistan. At least, America would have forward deployed troops -- just in case this very scenario became a reality.

If Obama is determined to keep America’s military engaged in Afghanistan, then he needs to huddle with the Pentagon and actually listen to the “fighting generals” and follow their advice. America has had more than enough of bureaucrats in Washington directing US troops in battle with an enemy. Mr. Obama should immediately drop any thought of “winning the hearts and minds” of the Afghans. It isn’t going to happen. Forget “nation building, too.

I am aware that I will earn the title of “Armchair General” by making this observation, but here goes, anyway. It seems to me that America has only two real choices in Afghanistan. Get out – or -- “fort-up” as near the Pakistan border as we can and with the use of electronic eavesdropping (otherwise known as “spying”) and “humint” or “human intelligence” gathering sources (That simply means spies on the ground in Pakistan) stay as well informed as is humanly possible so that threats to Pakistan’s’ nuclear weapons and their development program can be thwarted as quickly and efficiently as possible. Even that won’t be one hundred percent effective, but, at least, our efforts in Afghanistan will not be a total waste, as they certainly appear to be today.

Hard choices? You bet they are. But that is the reason the President gets the “big bucks,” the nice house, the nice cars, and even a primo aircraft to fly about the globe. And, we would go so far as to suggest that Mr. Obama kiss and make up with Israel, our only REAL friend in the Middle East. He may not like it, but, from the looks of the diplomatic struggles with Israel these days, there remains the very real chance we will need to use Israel’s military facilities in the event the war in that region becomes even hotter and even wider.

So now it is “Obama’s War.” It will make his administration -- or -- break his administration. If Mr. Obama has any doubts about that, at all, we suggest he pluck a few history books from the White House library and look up the Jimmy Carter Administration. Many of the problems America is trying to deal with today, in the Middle East, were inherited directly from the hapless Carter Administration. It will be a very long time, indeed, before the American electorate entrusts the lives of their young military assets to the likes of the Carter Administration ever again. Unfortunately for the America people, Mr. Obama exhibits a host of the Carter foibles and will cost the US, over time, an abundance of time, money, and American blood.

This is, admittedly, not an easy problem to deal with. But deal with it Obama must. We Americans and, indeed, the remainder of the world, both friend and foe alike, will have their eyes upon Obama observing, trying his metal, and looking for that single weakness Obama may display. They will be searching for a weakness they can exploit to bring even more death and destruction to America’s shores. We can only pray that Divine Providence will look mercifully upon America and extend his arm of protection around the US as He has so lovingly done in the past.

J. D. Longstreet

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" rel="tag">Conservative+Liberal+Progressive+Afghanistan+War+Obama+Pakistan

The Afghanistan Quagmire ... Alan Caruba

The Afghanistan Quagmire

By Alan Caruba

********************

In November 2008, I wrote of Afghanistan, “Having lived through the long years of the war in Vietnam, I can tell you that Afghanistan looks and smells like Vietnam. It is the classic wrong war in the wrong place.”

I still think the U.S. should leave. I don’t like having to pack up and abandon Afghanistan to its fate, but Afghanistan’s fate has been fought over for centuries and, in the modern era, it has defied any invasion or intrusion into its affairs.

It is in a very bad neighborhood that includes Russia, Iran, and the worst basket case of all, Pakistan. The Afghans and Pakistanis mutually despise each other.

When someone like Adm. Mike Mullen, the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says that the situation in Afghanistan has been “deteriorating” over the past few years and that the “Taliban insurgency has gotten more sophisticated”, as he did on August 23, you better pay attention.

More importantly, the White House had better pay attention. The Admiral is trying to send it a message. He said, for example, he was “extremely concerned” about the recent bombings in Iraq. Speaking on CNN’s ‘State of the Nation’, it was no secret that the man overseeing the greatest military on Earth was warning that it is ill-equipped to deal with insurgencies short of the massive infusion of manpower.

We tried that in Vietnam. It didn’t work. The former Soviets tried that in Afghanistan. It didn’t work. The invasions were successful in turning both places into slaughterhouses. History cries out against foreign engagement in this feeble excuse for a nation.

The U.S. justification for the waging of war is because 9/11 was planned there. It is a fallacy. The next attack on America can be planned anywhere. Al Qaeda does not need Afghanistan to do that.

Specifically, the last general charged with succeeding in Afghanistan asked for and was denied 10,000 more troops. Then he was replaced.

All during the long years of the war in Vietnam, Americans were told that another increase of troops would turn the tide, but we know now what the White House knew then; there was no indigenous enthusiasm for the South Vietnamese generals and even less for the Americans. Both Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon knew we could not win a war there and some 57,000 American dead is their ugly legacy.

We have been in Afghanistan since 9/11 when we enjoyed an initial success chasing out the Taliban and al Qaeda. That was accomplished, not by a massive U.S. troop infusion, but by hiring its northern tribes who were opposed to the Taliban, intruders from across the border in Pakistan, in combination with our extraordinary air power. Earlier, during the years of the Soviet invasion, the U.S. provided massive amounts of money and weapons to Afghan tribes, some which were led by notorious drug lords.

The Taliban are back. The Afghans are tired of American troops in their midst and you can largely dismiss the smaller numbers of troops from “coalition” nations because they are window-dressing. This does not diminish the casualties they have sustained, but it does acknowledge their very reluctant participation.

Long ago, the British learned that Afghanistan is a place where empires go to die.

Virtually every military expert agrees that Afghanistan is the last place on Earth for a modern army to wage war and that includes every NATO general. It no doubt includes the Russians whose invasion ultimately brought down the former Soviet Union. That whole game was part of the larger Cold War.

Afghanistan never was much of a “nation” though it was relatively calm when Afghan dynasties ruled from around the 1700s into the last century. In terms of foreign policy, the U.S. had largely ignored Afghanistan for decades.

The notion that democracy as practiced in the West can be transplanted there is farcical though some previous Afghan regimes had made progress to free women from Islamic subjugation. Efforts toward modernization have always been painfully slow there.

Since the 1700s the primary export from Afghanistan has been heroin and it remains so today. Other than growing poppies, there’s not much that passes for an economy there. It doesn’t matter who’s elected because the business of Afghanistan is opium. American troops will not alter that.

The U.S. war in Afghanistan has been going on since 2001, but Americans dislike long wars. We fought a long one and a wrong one in Vietnam. They serve no purpose. Our military exists to kill people and smash things. Nation building is not one of its skill sets, nor should it be.

Right now Americans are distracted by the battles over the hideous healthcare reform bill and Cap-and-Trade. Americans rightfully fear that those in control of our government are deliberately bankrupting the nation. In increasing numbers they have concluded that electing Obama president was a very bad idea.

It is unfortunate that we measure wars by the number of casualties, but they will continue in Afghanistan and, when Americans at last turn their collective attention to them, the pressure to withdraw from Afghanistan will mount.

I confess that the strategic reasons for being there defy my understanding, other than its proximity to Pakistan. It sounds to me like the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs wants to leave and for very good reasons that date back at least three centuries and longer.

The war on terror will go on until we kill as many of the leadership of al Qaeda as possible. When it becomes too lethal to join al Qaeda, its members will go back to herding goats. It is a war that can and should be fought covertly and as viciously as possible.

Alan Caruba writes a daily post at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/. A business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.

© Alan Caruba, September 2009

**********************

Conservative+Obama+Afghanistan+Quagmire

History Really Does Repeat Itself

History Repeating Itself?

Remarks on a Victory Lost and a Book Review.

J. D. Longstreet

*******************************

As the Obama Administration begins to withdraw troops from Iraq and step up US operations in Afghanistan, one can see certain parallels with the way America mishandled the war in Vietnam. What is frightening, though, is to see the current administration seemingly set on making the same mistakes, the mistakes that cost the US so dearly in Vietnam, all over again. Obama's regime seems set to accept something short of victory in Afghanistan and that is worrisome. In Iraq, as each single day goes by, it becomes even more obvious that the US is pulling troops out of Iraq and turning over control to an Iraqi government that seems bent on re-creating the same sort of dictatorship ruled over by Saddam Hussein before the US entered and took him out. In other words, the US is setting the stage for a Gulf War Three right now.

For those of us who lived through the trying days of the Vietnam War, both here at home and in the jungles of Southeast Asia, the bumbling and fumbling in the two theatres of war in the Middle East today are all too obvious. The loss of the Vietnam War was authored in Washington, DC, by the US government. The US Armed Forces had the war won, when politicians in the nation’s capitol gave that victory away!

A new book by Richard Botkin, titled “ Ride the Thunder” details what happened in Vietnam and how a war that was won could be sacrificed on the alter of politics.

What follows is a review of that book by Rear Admiral Jeremiah Denton, a former POW in North Vietnam and a former US Senator from Alabama. As you read, you will begin to see that history, does, in fact, repeat itself. We think you will agree with us that the US is, today, setting the stage for Gulf War Three and we think, you will agree that it does not have to be this way.

Here, now, is Rear Admiral/US Senator Jeremiah Denton’s take on Richard Botkin’s book, “Ride the Thunder.”

***************************

“Thirty-six years ago this month, after the North Vietnamese suffered utter destruction of their military complex from Linebacker II air operations and the blockade of all North Vietnam ports, the Democratic Congress passed a bill prohibiting any further U.S. aid to South Vietnam. The bill's passage was the death sentence to the nation we had vowed to protect from communism.

President Nixon knew his veto of the bill would be overridden, making any veto effort futile. Even though the North was ready to sign a treaty to free South Vietnam, Congress' demands to pass the bill nullified Linebacker II and provided the communists with a free ticket to walk into South Vietnam.

This exercise of off-battlefield politics resulted not only in the loss of a near conquest by American armed forces but in a dreadful loss of American credibility. No history pundit has since given account to Vietnam's true victory -- until now. Richard Botkin, author of "Ride the Thunder," provides indispensable, historic details of the Vietnam War, dispelling the notion that all was lost.

The aftershock of Vietnam resulted in the tragic realization among veterans and citizenry alike that the gallant, sacrificial effort of American, South Vietnamese, and allied forces to preserve a free South Vietnam had been futile and flagrantly unappreciated by America. Following Vietnam, no American promise of prolonged commitment to any cause would be of concern to antagonists or trusted by allies.

The precedent is being applied tragically by the current administration in its signals to our antagonists that we will withdraw our troops from Iraq and other Middle East trouble spots before we achieve our objectives. Unless we can dismiss the applicability of the precedent, we are destined to repeat our failures, thus ensuring our ultimate demise as a nation. However, we will not dismiss it until the truth about our Vietnam experience is revealed in its totality.


Now at last, "Ride the Thunder" provides this indispensable revelation. Anyone who reads it will finally have the facts to perceive the answers to long-held questions: Was the cause in Vietnam worth our waging a war? Did the media's reporting and false antiwar influences cause us to surrender? Was military victory indeed forfeited by Congress' unilateral political act? Was the bill prohibiting any further commitment there the coup de grace in efforts to free South Vietnam?

The book delivers the truth comprehensively and authoritatively. Evidence is presented in the true stories of persons engaged over the entire time frame of the war. Incontrovertible facts and details are presented on Vietnam.

"Ride the Thunder" painstakingly sketches the history of Vietnam, revealing its remarkable ethnic characteristics: its peerless work ethic, an unequaled awareness of the importance of family, compassion for the elderly and an awareness of the importance of rearing wholesome children. It relates how Vietnam in early ages became a powerful nation in military, political, and economic terms.


However, Mr. Botkin also relates Vietnam's history of often being overtaken and ruled by more powerful nations whose soldiers and officials mistreated innocent Vietnamese with unbelievable savagery. From China, Japan, and other powerful oppressors to devastating natural disasters, Vietnam's people have been tempered by sufferings for centuries.

"Ride the Thunder" traces its historical origins in relationship with the United States. The book exemplifies how the Korean War predisposed the United States to regard Ho Chi Minh's invasion as directly related to U.S. containment of communist expansion. The Korean War ended with the United States settling on a stalemate for the first time in our history. This created a pattern of quitting and foretold the possibility we would settle for even less in a future war -- as we did in Vietnam and show signs of doing in the Middle East.

Naturally, Vietnam's history takes the sharpest focus as it deals with the American involvement in the Vietnam War. In this light, "Ride the Thunder" chronicles the individual personal experiences of the Vietnamese and U.S. military and political personages, the sum of which presents a comprehensive tapestry depicting all the complex facets, revelations and implications of the war and its aftermath.


The persons chronicled have well-known names, including Maj. Le Ba Binh, U.S. Marine Lt. Col. Gerry Turley, Capt. John Ripley and Sgt. Chuck Goggin, to name a few. The sum of their collective experiences displays the events and true significance of every ground and air campaign, battle and strategic tactical decision. The truth derived is in sharp contrast to the way the war was reported, written into history and remembered by us as a nation.

As I reviewed "Ride the Thunder," though I have come to be regarded as one of the more authentic writers on what is significant about that war, I learned much I had not known.
However, more than any author can convey in words, one thing that I and other former prisoners of war witnessed with our own eyes was the absolute total destruction of the enemy's military during Linebacker II and the full realization by the North Vietnamese that they no longer had the means to continue the war.

A few days before my release from prison, I was subjected to an interview and briefing by the top military and political leadership of North Vietnam. The leaders told me they accepted defeat and were eager to sign an agreement to keep South Vietnam free. Their earnest plea to me upon return was to prevent the POWs from exaggerating the brutality of the treatment inflicted on us, which would incite U.S. public opinion to the degree that Mr. Nixon would find it inadvisable to sign the agreement.


The interview is written up briefly in "American Admiralship" by Edgar F. Puryear Jr., published by Naval Institute Press.

I hope Mr. Botkin's "Ride the Thunder" and my review will establish an accurate perspective on the meaning and significance of Vietnam and result in a renewed, honorable depiction of the war.

Jeremiah Denton

Rear Adm. Jeremiah Denton, U.S. Navy (retired), is a former U.S. senator from Alabama.

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Information on now to purchase “Ride the Thunder” by Richard Botkin can be found HERE.

J. D. Longstreet

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Conservative+Vietnam+War+Victory+Defeat+MidEast