title

Does Anyone Smell 'Vietnam' In The New Administration?
By Thomas D. Segel
May 5, 2009

I don't know about you, but I am seeing a hint of "Vietnam" all over again in the actions of the Obama Administration. With some of the decisions being made there appears to be a strong attempt to snatch defeat right out of the jaws of victory.

There is a pervasive sickness that seems to infect every politico who garners enough votes to land in that swampland we call Washington D.C. These people who start out as well meaning souls with dreams of improving humanity and the nation rapidly become infected with the Washington Beltway Plague, which has no known cure. Having this illness makes them susceptible to everything wrong-headed, including inflated ego, the belief they have an all-seeing vision, corruption as a given right, and a power thirst that will remain unquenched forever. It was a like-body of politicians who managed the defeat of Vietnam, and since history loves to repeat itself could still bring about our defeat in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

If this sounds crazy to you, a reflection on our war history might be in order. The war in Vietnam was seeped in political ignorance from the day the first shot was fired. Much of this is documented in the course materials of "Politics of the Vietnam War", a study conducted by Dr. John W. Garver at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2007.

According to Dr. Garver, one school of interpretation is our political elite took us into an unjust war through a combination of ignorance and arrogance. It unknowingly allowed America to be tarnished with the stain of colonialism in the eyes of Asian peoples and by actions reminiscent of decades long occupier France, caused a nationalism movement in Vietnam under the guise of Communism.

The second school of interpretation is the United States lost because of a long string of political blunders, followed by an equal string of strategic blunders. In the first years of the war inept political leaders, along with their military lackeys, according the MIT study " chose ways of conducting the war that allowed Hanoi to play to its own strengths and to US weaknesses, thereby preventing decisive application of US power to destroy North Vietnam's ability to continue prosecuting the war." It has long been argued that the US defeat was brought about by unsound political and strategic thought that was compounded when put into action.

The final school of interpretation in the MIT papers is the claim, which has been echoed time and again by those who are combat veterans of that ill-fated war. According to this examination of events, the United States actually won the war after the countless blunders of the Lyndon B. Johnson and William Westmoreland years. Says Dr. Garver, "Under the leadership of Creighton Abrams, William Colby, and Richard Nixon by early 1973 the insurgency was destroyed and the South essentially pacified, while Saigon's armies had proved their ability to hold against North Vietnamese conventional invasion with US support."

The academic examination goes on to explain that after the 1972 election U. S. foreign policy was taken over by Congressional Democrats who caused the United States to abandon South Vietnam and leave that country without its long promised military support. The United States, through political Washington, showed the world we could never be considered trusted allies in any struggle. When America walked out on its allies the South collapsed before Hanoi's forces. Though military leaders argued strongly against such a pullout from Vietnam, the Democrat controlled Congress, bowing to its leftist anti-war base, forced the retreat and were responsible for the resulting Hanoi victory.

We now jump to the year 2009. A new Democrat Administration is in place. It has held total power for less than four months, but we are already seeing political decisions that can demoralize our troops and inflame our enemies.

The Guantanamo detention center was ordered closed. The administration plans to move terrorist detainees to our mainland United States facilities. An executive order has been issued that bans any form of enhanced interrogation, which it has labeled torture. Congress will now attempt to hold open show-hearings on CIA techniques. There is a strong desire on the part of the Democrat Congressional leadership to criminalize Bush Administration war decisions.

The rejection of the term "War on Terror" was announced by the administration. There has been notification of the Obama Administration's new terminology, calling our operations against Islamic terrorists either "Overseas Contingency Operations", or if the action is caused by enemy attacks to call them "Man Made Disasters." They have released secret CIA documents on interrogation techniques that can give aid to the enemy.

The Administration released of hundreds of prison photos that could anger the Islamic world. Democrat members of Congress are already saying they don't want to send too many more troops into combat or authorize too much money, for fear it will extend the war. This is the war, which they already called lost more than two years ago.

All of this has happened in less than 100 days of the new Democrat Congress and the Obama Administration. It doesn't mean defeat yet. But, I smell odors of Vietnam in almost every war related announcement. Remember, if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck?

Source:http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/tsegel/2009/ts_05041.shtml