Friday, December 02, 2005
Winners and Losers
Another way to evaluate the characterization of a war is to evaluate who lost. Now, let's see.
1) Saddam - in jail.
2) Baathist regime - mostly in jail, dead, or on the run.
3) Ansar Al Islam, later renamed Al Qaeda in Iraq - lost its training base in Iraq; failed to secure Fallujah after November 2004; failed to secure Mosul, Ramadi or any significant piece of property inside of Iraq; failed to prevent election; failed to prevent adoption of constitution; failed to secure Iraqi Islamic regime. Generally, on the run.
The list goes on. So another way to frame the discussion if the MSM and antiwar left want to have to debate is to ask, well, if we didn't win, who did?
It highlights the absolute idiocy and bankruptcy of the MSM/ Democratic "strategy," if we can call it that. If one says something often enough, it doesn't make it true. Only the facts on the ground do that. And try as they might, the editors at the NYT can't alter the facts on the ground. Nor can Paul Krugman or Frank Rich.
Another observation -- much of this political claptrap is orchestrated to prepare the field for the November 2006 elections and even 2008 elections. I actually caught one MSM fellow talking about how Bush will certainly lose. When do you think these brilliant folks will realize neither he nor Cheney are running for office?
The Democratic Party need to wake up and recognize that George Bush might be a convenient and inviting target for criticism -- but he is no longer their political adversary. This will be a new player, free to shape his own political strategy based on facts, while the Democrats will be somewhat boxed in by their foolish current quotes. They will wind up again being tortured by the flip flop allegation, and it will serve them very poorly with a population who care deeply about security.
11 Comments:
By 
Counter Trey, at
Fri Dec 02, 11:59:00 AM:
Good work, Cardinalpark.
I just finished the chapter in V.D. Hanson's book, Carnage and Culture, on the Tet offensive. Hanson generously quotes Thucydides on the Peloponnesian War for comparisons to Vietnam. I understand he makes similar comparisons of the Peloponnesian War to Iraq in his latest book—A War Like No Other.
One of Hanson’s main points: A military can kill at a forty-to-one ratio as the US military did during Tet and not get credit for winning the battles or war if the generals and political leadership hand back or walk away from the territory held or gained and refuse to press on. In other words, the political leadership must be committed to victory.
Hanson writes that the Marines under siege at Khe sanh (a few days before Tet) and their air support absolutely annihilated the NVA and guerrillas attacking the base, but all the press could write about was the meaninglessness of trying to hold such a forward base, not victory. The press wrote, and liberal politicians said, that Khe sanh was our Dien Bien Phu, where the French were crushed four years earlier, and the public was led to believe that we were losing.
Then, after victory at Khe sanh, after destroying the enemy and holding the position despite being overwhelmingly outmanned, the generals decided to leave the base and level it. The Marines were pissed to hand back hard-won territory after such a decisive victory.
Khe sanh, it seems, was the Vietnam War in a nut shell and is very similar to our political leader’s (i.e. Clinton’s) response to decisive victory in Somalia. Bush is not making the same mistakes: Nothing less than total victory.
By Cardinalpark, at
Fri Dec 02, 12:28:00 PM:
His political will is completely infuriating to the MSM. His thick skin and willingness to thumb his nose at the press and "polls" is awesome.
One thing to keep in mind...Nixon's political disgrace ultimately unwound any capacity we had to defend South Vietnam.. LBJ obviously lacked the will to complete the mission. Nixon's crime ultimately doomed us there...again, political will. Not the press or antiwar dimwits. Leadership.
Leadership, leadership, leadership.
By Cassandra, at
Fri Dec 02, 01:09:00 PM:
Yes, but in a "free" society, leadership is increasingly being cast as insularity and a refusal to "listen to the voice of the people".
I'm about to bloviate again, so I'd better shut up.
By 
, at
Fri Dec 02, 02:18:00 PM:
The press is a real threat to our military on multiple fronts. It attacks the center of our line by bolstering the morale (and thereby the determination, resolve and endurance) of the enemy, who listen to our press very closely. It attacks our servicemen from the rear by driving public opinion to believe that we are defeated, thereby demolishing politically the fruits of victory which our troops, with their blood, have already won militarily (Counter Trey’s description of Khe sanh is an excellent example).
It is our duty at home to fight the defeatist press, just as it is the duty of our troops in Iraq to fight the terrorists. Conservative blogs like this one help to do that job. CBS, NY Times, and the rest of the leftist MSM are defeated every time you expose their lies. Keep up the good work.
And go ahead and bloviate, Cassandra. It is cathartic for you, and good reading for us.
By Cassandra, at
Fri Dec 02, 02:44:00 PM:
Nah, too much of me is like a broken record. And besides I feel bad - I have probably made Screwy's head explode already.
I'm sorry! :)
By Jeff Kouba, at
Sat Dec 03, 10:49:00 PM:
I think some encouraging parallels can be drawn between Mosul and Ramadi... As you say, the bad guys are not firmly holding the ground.
By Gordon Smith, at
Sun Dec 04, 12:24:00 AM:
Click Here to see my head explode.
I think we'll wait and see what develops out of the omelet being improvised out of the broken eggs of trust, invasion, occupation, dead people, etc. in the New Iraq, but there's no trusting any of the suppositions and strategies being wrung from the Bush administration by a populace that feels betrayed.
I know that damned First Amendment is a real pain in the ass when people use it to disagree with truly terrible foreign policy decisions. I know. Damn you, First Amendment!
It would be a lot easier to get on board with anything this administration is pursuing if they hadn't fed us so much pap and nonsense. "Six days, six weeks, I doubt six months" - "Greeted as liberators" - "Oil money will pay for the reconstruction" - "International Coalition" - "Mushroom cloud"
I believe nothing the Bush administration says. How can I possibly support the misguided war efforts of an administration that I wouldn't trust to take care of my dog?
I hope that Iraq becomes a shining light of democracy that will be held up through the ages as the greatest achievement of man. I guess we'd settle for a Shiite theocracy, guerrilla warfare, and a shadow U.S. presence though, right?
By Counter Trey, at
Sun Dec 04, 01:34:00 AM:
Screwie,
Instead of wasting your time blogging, why don't you and your dog go to Iraq and make things right?
One word of precaution: I heard that the Freedom Fighters there don't like it when westerners have bodyguards. It makes them angry.
By Gordon Smith, at
Sun Dec 04, 02:28:00 PM:
Counter Trey,
I understand that you're angry with those who don't support this flailing foreign policy, and if I thought I could help one whit in Iraq, then I might just hop on over there. I'm going to work for Democratic Party candidates and work to move the debate not to what kinds of war ought we be waging but to what the United States can do to pursue a long-term strategy of peace and global economic development.
By Cassandra, at
Wed Dec 07, 05:30:00 PM:
Screwy, I don't really want your head to explode.
And seriously, I don't want you not to express dissent. I hope you know that.
It's just that I cannot help being enormously frustrated when I hear from Marines on the front (and I do hear from them, all the time) and how absolutely furious they are about how betrayed they feel at the reception what they are doing gets back home.
NO positive press coverage.
Lies from their representatives in Congress.
That's must not right. Several of our Congressmen and women have lied, over and over. Facts are facts, Screwy. If you have an honest case to make, go ahead and make it, but don't inflate the numbers or say the Army is broken when its not, or say our troops don't support the war when they do.
That's just a bald-faced lie.
Feel how you like about the fact that we are at war, but don't give aid and comfort to the very people who are shooting at our men. Criticize honestly. And think about who your words might affect.
Cheating to win a fight isn't right.
By Cassandra, at
Wed Dec 07, 05:33:00 PM:
And to clarify, I'm not saying you have done those things. I don't know you or the arguments you make.
But I darned sure have pointed out, several times, where others have done those things. When a fact is checkable and on record, don't say unemployment is 60% in Iraq when it's not.
Don't say the casualty rate is the highest it's ever been when it's not and the stats are right up on the Internet because you know not many people are going to fact check your sorry tuckus.
Because I will.
