Post-Victory Warfare - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
Post-Victory Warfare
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AMATEUR EFFORT
Re: George H. Wittman’s A War Too Rough:

Apologies to Rudyard Kipling:

Take up the White Man’s Burden, troops,
Wherever they should sendya
But here’s the final irony
Our President hails from Kenya

He proffers all the soft ideas
the fluffy Liberal line
But when it come to policy
It’s Bismarck’s Blood und Iron

But have a heart- what choice has he?
He’s finally in charge
And now it’s coming deadly clear
His errors will be writ large

So He must protect His image and
Construct the careful fence
Even if it’s made of policies
Obama preached against

What should we do for Afghans
Those immoral, charming scamps?
Why, American Citizenship classes
for refugee/jihadi camps

So long as Talibani votes
the Democrats ranks are filling
why not ( shades of ACORN)
ignore the odd honor killing?

So what if Liberty’s bright crown
has finally lost its luster?
With al – Qaeda votes for Al-Qongress
there will be no filibuster!
— Martin Owens
Sacramento, California

While an aggressive use of Special Forces can do a better job than a larger convention force sitting on the defensive, the fundamentals on the ground and the continuing need for us to be there for a generation or more will not change by this alone. An eighth century society is not going to vote its way into the 21st century after an election cycle or two.

Since Korea, our political establishment has been trying to redefine military victory in political terms. We lost nearly 100,000 in Korea and Vietnam combined under this concept and both countries are still in the hands of the enemy. One is nuclear arming and has the capacity to do a great deal of damage in the immediate area and eventually further out if left to its own devices. We walked over the Iraqi forces in 1990 in the world’s largest live fire training exercise and left the political structure in place that caused nothing but problems for the following 13 years by thumbing its nose at the agreements it signed to end that little war. Same for North Korea which has violated every agreement it signed. With a fraction of the forces we had in 1990 we took down Iraq and are still there because we still don’t understand the concept of defeating the enemy (as we did in WWII btw). In Afghanistan we’ve followed the original concept of limited war as we did in Vietnam with predictable results. Like Vietnam we drove the primary enemy forces out of the country and gave them safe havens in border countries and let them regroup, refit and control the initiative of when and where to attack. Like Vietnam, the enemy has controlled its losses and efforts, not through our efforts to control them. Like Vietnam, this goes on until one side gets tired of such low intensity effort. We have data points on who will pack up their marbles and go home first.

Like Korea, we rushed in without adequate forces and commitments to win a military victory. Like Korea when the going got rough we only got enough UN commitments to hold the original 38th Parallel. Like Korea and Vietnam victory was redefined as not losing a winnable conflict rather than defeating a military force outright with several times the capacity for war our enemies have at their disposal. Like all of our conflicts other than war, our political establishment desperately attempts to redefine war in purely political terms at the cost of tens of thousands of wasted lives. It has been written that only the dead know the end of war.

If we continue our amateur efforts at playing “war” since the 1950s we are going to eventually run up against someone that understands war and has the capacity to do something about that. George Will has famously recommended that we pull out of both Iraq and Afghanistan and framed both efforts in terms of the deteriorating situation in the Balkans again. Being a supporter of neither effort, Will’s reasoning isn’t limited to his less than stellar understanding of the military reality if we do this without resolving what we went to Iraq and Afghanistan to resolve. On the other hand he does understand that the current administration will do anything it can to gut our military capacity to garner the savings from that to spend on its domestic programs while saying something quite different for public consumption. The public consumption part will ultimately just waste more lives for no purpose outside the political realm. George Will is wrong of course but he does understand the political reality that governs our post victory era concept of warfare. On that matter he is unfortunately right on the money.

The highest levels of our military profession are fond of saying we can’t be defeated militarily by our enemies. On a man for man basis that is true as far as it goes. The flip side is that our enemies don’t have to defeat our military to achieve their objectives. We are taking care of the rest of their plan for them.
— Thom Bateman
Newport News, Virginia

STEPPING BACK
Re: Ben Stein’s Plugging Away:

There are many things to like and to admire about Ben Stein, but, to me, one stands out. In spite of his whining, he is able to step back and recognize the beauty of the moment, no matter how trivial and inconsequential that moment may be. One of his musings of years ago stands out in particular. He was visiting his parents at their Watergate apartment, sitting on the couch, watching them being the wonderful, smart people they were. He reflected how wonderful that moment was; and how fleeting it was because there would not be many more. Now with his parents gone, I’m sure he goes back to that filed thought and thanks himself for that recognition and the enjoyment it brought him.
— Paul Z

Summer is ending, writes Ben Stein, and I reflect like he, that it has been a difficult year. I have just returned from the western most ranch, where Mother and Daddy are barely hanging on. I spent days in lingering Texas sunshine walking the ranch and wondering how many bushels of beautiful Texas pecans we would be able to gather and put in the freezer for next year. The trees here hang with limbs breaking from the fullness of the bounty of pecans. Yet, last year the trees produced no pecans whatsoever due to the massive and lengthy drought. Mostly, however, I wondered as I walked freshly plowed and planted fields, if my folks would live through this winter. Life has been exceedingly fragile for them, as they still try to find ways of coping with diminishing abilities. Mother just left the hospital and dad, while just turning ninety, has said he has seen Heaven’s portals and his loving Heavenly Father is waiting for him. To me it seems that each is in a race to see who will reach Heaven first.

My father sleeps much of the day in his recliner. Occasionally, he will glance at the television and reflect that our precious country is lost and all that he and his father worked for is being given away to people who would not know what to do with what is given them. I find I cannot disagree with his assessment. And I wonder if this winter will truly be the winter of our discontent in our nation. I pondered this all the way home, some 325 miles, as I listened to June Carter’s and Johnny Cash’s last album. The old songs seem to soothe my soul and remind me that families go through intense times and that our consolation rests solely on a faithful God. I always remind my father that he and mother’s gifts to me are this wonderful strong faith, worked out in hard times and good, and given to my children in like manner.

So, I begin singing along with June and Johnny and relish the thought that I will soon be back in East Texas, to my loving husband, faithful pack of dogs (some 6 now), and the small herd of cattle. And I remember, with gratitude that “little son”, as we fondly call our pilot son, is home from many times at war and he and his sweet wife are expecting (with great joy) a second child. I wonder what name they will give this new child and wonder if it could be as great as the name he and his bride chose for their first child, a daughter named Liberty. And I thank God once more for this life, its sorrows and pleasures, for new life and lives well lived, and I pray for grace to meet all needs.

Not the life Ben Stein is privileged to lead but still, like his, it is grateful for all God has given. And like him, I rest assured that God will provide and His faithfulness will be seen by yet another generation. And I pray God’s grace over my nation, and God’s protection, and His love to meet all needs.
— Beverly Gunn
East Texas Rancher

WALKING AND CHEWING GUM
Re: Ben Stein’s Expelled From the New York Times:

Nice going firing that rotten Ben Stein. Why should you have one writer who makes sense and is funny at the same time? Now you have no one who can walk and chew gum at the same time. A perfect line-up.
— Gary Waller

REALLY SIMPLE
Re: Robert Stacy McCain’s Secret Protocols of Beck’s Legions:

The reason I like Glenn Beck is because he is MY VOICE! He talks about all the things that drive me crazy about our government but am powerless to express. That is the basis of his popularity. It really is simple.
— Jeanie Whittaker

THE PARTY OF SLAVERY
Re: Jeffrey Lord’s Race Pimping With Mistuh Jimmy and White Mo:

This type of hate filled sentiment still motivates Jimmy Carter and DemocRATS in the dark recesses of their bigoted heart. Race has been and always will be a guiding principle of the party of slavery, Jim Crow, lynchings, segregation and tokenism — the DemocRAT party. For the oligarchs who control the party minorities are only as valuable as their votes that keep the “masters” in power and growing fat at the public trough.
— Michael Tomlinson
Jacksonville, North Carolina

I have news for you. Governor Wallace changed his views on race and segregation decades before his death in 1998. That means you can remove his name from such deceitful company as Jimmy Carter.
— Michael Skaggs
Murray, Kentucky

COWARDLY RACISM
Re: Ken Blackwell’s Obama Is Right and Carter Is Wrong:

Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, David Axelrod and others in Obama’s administration, as well as the Democrat Party leadership and the state-controlled media, cause irreparable national harm through their cowardly racism.

How could Carter take a cue from the White House? Obama, who learned nothing from the negative public reaction to his unrestrained racist judgment about the white Cambridge policeman, has issued only another half-hearted statement.

Just as true-believer Obama won’t be controlled or change, neither will true-believer Carter.
The day after his initial condemnation and dismissal of those who object to Barack Obama’s and the tin-eared non-representative Congress’s politics and actions, Carter reprised his insult.

At Emory University, he said, “When a radical fringe element of demonstrators and others begin to attack the president of the United States as an animal or as a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler or when they wave signs in the air that said we should have buried Obama with Kennedy, those kinds of things are beyond the bounds.”

Further, “I think people who are guilty of that kind of personal attack against Obama have been influenced to a major degree by a belief that he should not be president because he happens to be African American. It’s a racist attitude, and my hope is and my expectation is that in the future both Democratic leaders and Republican leaders will take the initiative in condemning that kind of unprecedented attack on the president of the United States.”

Would that be like Carter, Obama, the Democrat leadership and others of their throng jumping to condemn the torrent of malicious, racist words spoken and images published in past years about George W. Bush, as well as Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, Miguel Estrada and other black and white conservatives and Republicans?
I didn’t think so, either.
— C. Kenna Amos Jr.

TREATING OUR FRIENDS BADLY
Re: Matthew Omolesky’s The Gray Zone: Poland and the Abandoned Missile Defense Shield Initiative:

This article and one regarding the Czechs and their fight for democracy both highlight a generic question about this U.S.   administration. Why do we treat our enemies so good and our friends so bad? Just one illustration of such is the insult of Obama and his lovely “better half” and the way they treated our ancestor and best friend, the Brits, when they refused to accept the bust of Churchill. Apparently because of Britain’s slave trading past. Are these half educated people unaware of the history of the English people in fighting for over a hundred years to eradicate the slave trade when it was still profitable? Contrast this with Obama’s and his wife’s affection for Muslim Africa and the Muslin Middle East where slavery still goes on and where women still have no rights separate from their often abusive husbands. It is inexplicable to say the least. Pray for the state of Israel. It is obviously going to need our prayers and support with this gang that believes in nothing but power and seems to have many grudges against most of our traditions and especially traditional Christianity. Lastly let us pray for this generation and those to come. Irving Kristol and Milton Friedman, two giant intellectual men of character have passed from the American scene and we are not apt to see their like again for a long time.
— Jack Wheatley
Royal Oak Michigan

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