President Obama’s ISIS Strategy Isn’t Reality Based

President Obama’s response to ISIS is another example of how our ruling class couples their illusions with whatever they find it convenient to do.

Angelo Codevilla, The Fedralist

President Obama’s promise “to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL” may or may not end up causing problems for the Islamic State. Surely however, it further degraded our security by further engaging us in the combination of fantasy and half measures that has earned America a reputation for un-seriousness and opened hunting season on Americans everywhere.

Obama degrades America by dwelling in a politically convenient fantasy world. In his September 10 2014 prime-time speech, Obama claimed to have made America safer by combining the withdrawal of troops from abroad with the killing of Osama bin Laden and “taking out terrorists who threaten us” in places like Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Obama pledged to deal with ISIL in the same successful way.

In Obama’s fantasy, ISIL is neither Islamic nor a state. But distinguishing ISIL’s doctrine from the orthodox Wahabism preached daily in Mecca and Minneapolis, and that from the Koran, is hardly possible for scholars never mind for religiously illiterate politicians. In fact, some of the world’s wealthiest and most influential Muslims think enough of ISIL’s Islamic credentials to give it countless millions of dollars as a faith-offering, thousands upon thousands of young Muslims from around the world, including the USA rush to fight and die for it, the Muslim governments of Qatar and Turkey, respectively, continue to buy and transit supplies for it, while the Islamic world’s leading intellectual authorities have not critiqued its Islamic credentials.

De facto, ISIL is a state because it controls territory larger than that of a plurality of the UN’s members, and because the people it rules prefer it to their former rulers. They do so because ISIL shares the people’s religious sect (Sunni Islam) while the leaders of the former Syria and Iraq are Alewis or Shia. ISIL conquered its territory with the help of the locals.  In Iraq, the local Sunnis helped ISIL chase away the Iraqi army, and the Kurds too, using arms given them by the US government as part of “the surge.”

But in Obama’s fantasy, as expressed by Sandy Berger, Clinton’s former national security adviser whose advice Obama solicited, our confrontation with ISIL “can’t turn into a U.S versus Sunni battle.” “It has to be us helping the Sunnis battle the Sunni extremists.” It has to be that, regardless of whether the Sunnis who live under ISIL regard their rulers as extremists or not. The locals have to look at things the way we do. They just damn well have to.

More than that, the folks in the region have to believe in and fight for entities called “Iraq” and “Syria,” to which heretofore they have shown scarce allegiance but in which Obama, like the Bushes and Clinton before him, professes to believe deeply. In his speech, he told the world that he had helped fix Iraq by brokering the new, “inclusive” Iraqi government sworn in on September 8. By supporting its efforts “to address the legitimate grievances and needs of all Iraqis”- read, the Sunnis – that government will “drive a wedge between ISIL and Sunnis.” Thus, “The Iraqi Government is taking the fight to ISIL, and will ultimately be the one to defeat it in Iraq.” Inclusiveness will do the trick, for Obama just as it did for Bush. This time, for sure.

If the hard men who now run the ISIL military, who had been Saddam Hussein’s security cadre, who marched against an Iraqi army flush with top-of-the line US arms confident that Iraqi soldiers would hand them over; if the Sunni Islamist agitators whom the American occupation of Iraq had imprisoned for shooting Americans and who now lead an ISIL Caliphate that draws countless recruits aching to behead Americans; if such people believed Obama’s speech, if they shared the Obama-Sandy Berger thesis, they would be quaking in their boots. Odds are they listened to Obama’s speech with glee.

They heard Obama promise to reduce ISIL’s revenue “from oil and assets it has plundered” and to disrupt “the flow of external donations to the group.” They know, just as any well-informed person anywhere knows, that the US government has the capacity to do just that. But they also know what Obama would have to do to accomplish it – namely institute some kind of secondary sanctions on countries (and there are a lot of them) that traffic in oil sold by ISIL – and that Obama does not have the slightest intention of upsetting these countries or the domestic US interests that deal with them. As for cutting off the external donations, the hard men of ISIL can use their financial account books as comfort-pillows, confident that Obama – and John McCain, Qatar’s favorite senator – will bring zero significant pressure on any Gulf rulers to jail their cousins who fund ISIL.

The secular and religious men of ISIL did not hear a peep from Obama about how the pipeline of food and fuel and medicine through Turkey by which ISIL survives is going to be shut down. That is because it isn’t going to be shut down and ISIL, along with its host population, will continue to eat, drink, and be well.

They heard Obama promise to strike from the air to “degrade ISIL’s leadership, logistical and operational capability, and deny it sanctuary and resources to plan, prepare and execute attack.” They know that America has an air force that could do that. Heck, they know that Saudi Arabia and Jordan together have over 400 modern fighter-bombers that, even without American attack aircraft but only with American air controllers, these could starve and kill them in an intensive campaign over a couple of months. But Obama told them that all they need worry about is the sort of thing that America has mustered against its enemies in recent years. Massive campaigns aimed at swift victory are now politically incorrect in Washington.

Obama promised to limit “ISIL’s ability to extort local populations; stemming ISIL’s gains from kidnapping for ransom.” That would be serious. But the men of ISIL can discount the threat because executing it would take physically pushing ISIL rulers out with a substantial ground force. Obama made it clear that the U.S. will not supply such a force. (Good thing too, because a US ground invasion would likely repeat the disastrous Iraq occupation policy). The Kurds fight magnificently. But they have learned to do so exclusively for Kurdistan. The Iraqi army does not, and will not, exist. Iraq has plenty of ferocious Shia militias – death squads – eager to take the equivalent of Sunni scalps. But all know that Obama will do his best to shield ISIL from the Shia. The Saudis demand it.

Again and again, Obama degraded the English language by describing his fantasy as “strategy,” as in: “our strategy will be underpinned by a strong coalition of regional and international partners who are willing to commit resources and will to this long-term endeavor.” This usage is akin to: “our strategy is to make a ham sandwich, contingent on somebody providing the bread and someone else the ham,” or “the mouse’s strategy for dealing with the cat is to place a bell around its neck.”

But Obama gave no hint as to how “regional and international partners” would be persuaded to do whatever it takes to “degrade and destroy” ISIL – nor even of what activity and what level thereof would be required to do that – any more than how any mouse might go about belling a cat.

The American people watched videos of men like ourselves being beheaded by Muslim thugs with a knife who now dispose of a state, and who are drawing unto themselves God-knows-how many would-be beheaders of Americans. The American people reasonably demanded a real campaign to destroy ISIL. What Obama delivered was yet more fantasy.

Alas, our ruling class couples their illusions with whatever they find it convenient to do, and call it “strategy.” Thereby do they advertise their impotence.

Angelo M. Codevilla is a fellow of the Claremont Institute, professor emeritus of international relations at Boston University and the author of To Make And Keep Peace, Hoover Institution Press, 2014.
September 14, 2014 | 284 Comments »

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50 Comments / 284 Comments

  1. @ honeybee:

    “So why don’t you and dweller find a constructive occupation than boring us with your post.Darlin”

    “I was unaware that we (or anybody else) had an obligation to keep you from nodding off. Did the rules change suddenly when I wasn’t looking?”

    “Yes Sweetie.”

    “To paraphrase the immortal words of Andrew Jackson (well, attributed to him) upon hearing of John Marshal’s decision in Worcester v. Georgia, 31 US 515 (1832):

    — You’ve made your decision, Twinkie. Now let’s see you enforce it.”

    “Run and hide, I am coming for you, Sweetie.”

    “Why hide? When you arrive, I’ll bore you to death. Problem solved.”

    “I doubt that Sweetie, you probably more interesting then you think.”

    In that case, your remark — about your wanting Max & YoursTruly to “find a constructive occupation than boring us with your post” — is MISPLACED.

  2. honeybee Said:

    Monument Valley or Mother Nature ????????

    Monument Vaalley.

    Mother Nature, like all Broads is irrational, unpredictable and extremely unstable at times. We guys don’t stand a chance so I tend to tread with care and respect even awe when I interact with her.

    There is much truth to the canard “Can’t live with her and can’t live without her” 🙁

  3. @ honeybee:

    “You’ve made your decision, Twinkie. Now let’s see you enforce it.”

    “Run and hide, I am coming for you, Sweetie.”

    Why hide?

    When you arrive, I’ll bore you to death.

    Problem solved.

  4. @ honeybee:

    “I was unaware that we (or anybody else) had an obligation to keep you from nodding off. Did the rules change suddenly when I wasn’t looking?”

    “Yes Sweetie.”

    To paraphrase the immortal words of Andrew Jackson (well, attributed to him) upon hearing of John Marshal’s decision in Worcester v. Georgia, 31 US 515 (1832):

    — You’ve made your decision, Twinkie. Now let’s see you enforce it.

  5. @ yamit82:

    “America never ever succeeded in gaining the support of the [South Vietnamese] peasants who hated the Saigon regime and looked at the Americans as invaders in the country just as they had the French and the Japanese before the French.”

    Quite so.

  6. @ honeybee:

    “The rest of this discussion is spurious and a playground for the trollish posters.”

    “So why don’t you and dweller find a constructive occupation then boring us with your post.Darlin”

    I was unaware that we (or anybody else) had an obligation to keep you from nodding off.

    — Did the rules change suddenly when I wasn’t looking?

  7. Max Said:

    You notice Yamit made fun of someone actually reading a book – most propagandists especially those who practice some form of personal and political fascism are anti-intellectual.

    I ridiculed you for forming opinions based on 1 or 2 references and apparently your silence wrt other sources offered no criticism or critical additions or corrections to the works you cited.

    Thee have been tens of thousands of books and scholarly articles written from different angles and POV. To rely on and base your opinions and world view on 1 or two cited works is in MO quite limiting. You claim to have also read many articles and I assume they all didn’t agree so where is the critical opposition POV to the ones cited?

    America never ever succeeded in gaining the support of the peasants who hated the Saigon regime and looked at the Americans as invaders in the country just as they had the French and the Japanese before the French.

    You equate on one hand democracy and capitalism with freedom and human rights yet you rant ad-nausea about the very absence of those conditions do to the Powerful elites who have usurped wealth and power thus denying same freedoms and human rights to the citizens of America and Canada. Got news for you Booby they aren’t the same.

    Democracy is always subject to manipulation and demagoguery and the lowest common denominator always wins out and that denominator seems to be very low.

    People will always chose some form of security over freedom and are more than willing to give others the responsibility and the power of choice as long as they have a reasonably good material life and physical security.

    Democracies have historically morphed to demagoguery, tyranny and Monarchy.

    YOU CAN’T CHANGE HUMAN NATURE!!!!!

    Mother Nature either 🙂

  8. Max Said:

    Neither of you added anything to this discussion except the substance Yamit mentioned.

    you are just upset because that is your usual role.
    Max Said:

    Both of you are elite loyalists and anti-democracy. So that’s one American fascist supporting a Jewish fascist both living in a world of propaganda. You have no way of telling fantasy from reality.

    HMMM? You would be good at resurrecting the Ptolemaic astronomy with all its tortured premises.

  9. yamit82 Said:

    Make up your warped freakin mind who you are for and against.

    He cant, its schizophrenia….he doesn’t even notice that there is any contradiction.

  10. Max Said:

    The rest of this discussion is spurious and a playground for the trollish posters.

    So why don’t you and dweller find a constructive occupation then boring us with your post.Darlin

  11. Max Said:

    Show me you have read or even scanned some of the book and /or Sorely’s work and I might continue the conversation on some distant future day.

    you should first show that you read the book as what you stated could have come off a cover jacket summary of the book. Its obvious that you read no other books on the subject.

  12. Max Said:

    The rest of this discussion is spurious and a playground for the trollish posters.

    seriously? Pot, kettle, black? stones, glass houses?
    you just replied with a ridiculously childish and trollish post to 2 long articles I posted from Klein on Benghazi which was chock full of facts for you to debunk…..instead, like an ignorant and childish troll, you ridiculed the post……you are a fake.
    On the viet nam issue you appear to have read one book and from that position you clamber onto a high rocking horse and rant like Don Quixote claiming you have the “definitive history”. Rants such as yours are designed to cover up ignorance, naming a book and spouting ludicrous dogmatic and ideological opinions does not make you knowledgeable on the issues. In fact you failed to cite anything from your book or from your experiences demonstrating that you might not have even read the book or had the experiences which you claimed, perhaps you only read the books cover jacket.

  13. @ Max:

    “South Vietnam is still occupied – just go there and find out. “

    “So you’ve been there lately?”

    “Was you there Charlie ?”

    “It’s immaterial whether I was there. Your question is is off-point and entirely out-of-context (which context I’ve restored, above). It’s MOST material whether MAX was there, however. I’d asked him if he’d been there (lately) because he had just suggested I go there to confirm his claim.”

    “The only point of my posting was to introduce the the only comprehensive history of the latter stages of the Vietnam War.”

    The point of MY posting was to show that the operational history of the war itself is irrelevant to determining the history of the country or its prospects. What’s the good of winning a war like that one if it has no realistic potential for STAYING ‘won’?

    “But you need to gather some learning before you have opinions”

    Been there, done that.

    not just do some internet searches to score points to be antagonistic..”

    Not Guilty as charged. I rarely do searches online. And didn’t do any for THIS exchange.

    — No time for searches; I’m on the clock.

    “The rest of this discussion is spurious and a playground for the trollish posters.”

    You noticed! You get a cigar.

  14. Max Said:

    Both of you are elite loyalists and anti-democracy.

    I will speak for myself. It’s you who claim that Canada and America are not democracy’s and are ruled by elites rendering the common man powerless.
    Yet you defend those Elites when they want to take you to wars to protect mainly their own interests and expect those like you to pay for them. Those same Elites you claim to hate so much are the very ones who profit most from those wars and each time become more entrenched more powerful and wealthier.

    Make up your warped freakin mind who you are for and against.

    militant Islam was resurrected from a long dormant period by the British later abetted by America. Without support from the Capitalist West there would be no militant Islam.

    With the fall of the Communist Bogeyman the Western Capitalist Elites needed a fear replacement and decided to substitute Militant Islam. Arab and Islamic States provide the required Bogeyman that guarantees perpetual conflict but one of a controlled nature ideologically based instead of Nation based. Say over 56 countries have major Muslim populations and insurgency with Terror.

    This will keep the military industrial complex busy and profitable for as long as there is Islamic Terror.

    Wall st and the Banksters love this because they can hide their own perfidy avoid the inevitable haircut and continue to rake in handsome profits.

    Yet who supplies all those weapons to Muslim countries and to Islamic terrorists? The West mostly and America in particular.

    Who created ISIS?
    Who released their Leaders from prison? Who originally financed them? Who trained them and where were they trained?

    Who knocked off Gaddafi for his stash of Arms supplied to every Islamic terror organization in the world? Who is allowing Iran to acquire Nukes and why? Who provoked the removal of friendly anti Islamic Mubarak for the MB? Who wanted to depose the stable Despot Assad in Syria for Islamic terrorists of all colors? Who invaded two Muslim countries for no logical reason destabilizing the whole of the ME,bankrupting the USA not to mention the thousands of GI’s killed and maimed for life? Who cut and run leaving their mess for others to deal with in their wake? Who is now using the same results of their own destabilizing imperialist policies as an excuse to re-invade and reconquer territories they recently fought a decade to stabilize?

    Israel is the proverbial Dutch boy with his finger in the Dike and the policies of Same Western christian capitalist democratic countries would sacrifice the only stable entity around unleashing the food that will also envelope themselves in the end. Explain this anomaly and yes they understand very well the consequences to themselves if we go under…..

  15. dweller Said:

    It’s MOST material whether MAX was there, however.

    The only point of my posting was to introduce the the only comprehensive history of the latter stages of the Vietnam War.

    Show me you have read or even scanned some of the book and /or Sorely’s work and I might continue the conversation on some distant future day. But you need to gather some learning before you have opinions – not just do some internet searches to score points to be antagonistic..

    The rest of this discussion is spurious and a playground for the trollish posters.
    You notice Yamit made fun of someone actually reading a book – most propagandists especially those who practice some form of personal and political fascism are anti-intellectual.

  16. honeybee Said:

    Yamit82 has LIVED what you have only read. Crawl out of your cave, Darlin.

    Both of you are elite loyalists and anti-democracy. So that’s one American fascist supporting a Jewish fascist both living in a world of propaganda. You have no way of telling fantasy from reality. Neither of you added anything to this discussion except the substance Yamit mentioned.
    ..

  17. dweller Said:

    Your distracting interjection only served to allow him to ignore a very relevant question.

    You are an expert in this tactic yourself: your psychobabble and name calling are usually a distraction, red herring for you to avoid answering “very relevant questions”

  18. dweller Said:

    I repeat, “what you KNEW he wanted you to say” (in this instance).

    But I told you before:
    These things are always mutual.
    He spots for you when YOU snipe.
    You spot for him when HE snipes.
    You’re BOTH perps
    — and you’re both ALSO enablers.

    Psychobabble as a substitute for demonstrable facts as usual.

    Your psychobabble “statements of somebody’s emotional makeup or motivational configuration” are merely abuse, insults, character assassinations and libels hiding behind a fig leaf of pretend psychology. In a court of law YOU would have the onus of proving your libels to be accurate.

    thats your motivation for psychobabble and here is your psychobabble credibility index:

    “You’ve NEVER been able to show a single instance of you being right about someone’s emotional and psychological makeup (including your own).”

    I see you just keep repeating your old habits in the hope they will morph into some shred of credibility

  19. @ dweller:
    apparently Yamit was correct when he stated that you have a tendency to be the last poster of a thread, e.g.””Israel’s defense would benefit from converting 10 million people to Judaism”.” which ended as you posted the 2 last posts to me, which as usual contained some of your usual rubbish and psychobabble. I think it is important to remind you of your lies and hypocritical BS.

    Dweller said:
    I also [use] the language of psychology — ….yet my application of it frequently differs HUGELY from the way shrinks use it….. it is typically every bit as substantive as (and usually a lot more profound than) that of the psychological industry So, now that we are on the same page in re the definition of psychobabble, it’s clear beyond cavil that I do NOT employ ‘psychobabble.’

    and yet the definition of Psychobabble clearly shows it fits you to a T:

    “psychobabble
    ‘…writing or talk using jargon from psychiatry or psychotherapy without particular accuracy or relevance.’
    ‘…Speech that is heavy in post-structuralist jargon that is heavily based on experience and emotion instead of well-known science’…”

    Pay attention to the words in bold in the definition which are congruent with your comment here.

    @ bernard ross said:
    “You’ve NEVER been able to show a single instance of you being right about someone’s emotional and psychological makeup (including your own).”
    Dweller said:
    I don’t need to. ….Unlike an accusation of wrongdoing, a simple statement of somebody’s emotional makeup or motivational configuration stands on its own merits until such time as it is shown to be inaccurate.

    Wrong again. Your psychobabble “statements of somebody’s emotional makeup or motivational configuration” are merely abuse, insults, character assassinations and libels hiding behind a fig leaf of pretend psychology. In a court of law YOU would have the onus of proving your libels to be accurate.

    As for standing on their own merits: I keep searching for those elusive merits, which are apparently other figments of your imagination, that you have yet to ever show. Show us the merits! Until then you should remember before you embark on your ludicrous psychobabble:
    Bernard Ross said:

    “You’ve NEVER been able to show a single instance of you being right about someone’s emotional and psychological makeup (including your own).”

    Bernard ross said:
    “Your lie was that ‘I asked you to prove you were NOT delusional’…”
    Dweller said:

    You did. It’s no lie — not even a teeny weeny fibYou may not have used those precise words in your demand; but that’s utterly irrelevant. You left no doubt WHATSOEVER as to your intent. ….. — I can read between the lines, dickhead.

    Therefore, you substituted your evaluation of my intent, your “reading between the lines”, your figments of your imagination in place of my ACTUAL WORDS on the forum; pretending they were MY words. You intentionally deceived the forum as to what I actually wrote. You, who is so “scrupulous” about proper citation, etc. admonishing others to follow proper standards, suddenly decides to present his own thoughts to the forum and to deceptively misrepresent that your thoughts were my words? I would call that “repackaging” deception a lie but your Pauline standards allow “marketing” to escape that designation in your delusional and hypocritical mind.

    Looks like your lies and psychobabble are chasing you down 😛

  20. @ honeybee:

    “…just what I wanted to say.”

    “No, Twinkie — just what you KNEW he wanted you to say.”

    “Nope Sweetie, you have it all wrong. Yamit82 is my Spotter and I am the Sniper.”

    I repeat, “what you KNEW he wanted you to say” (in this instance).

    But I told you before:
    These things are always mutual.

    He spots for you when YOU snipe.

    You spot for him when HE snipes.

    You’re BOTH perps

    — and you’re both ALSO enablers.

  21. @ honeybee:

    “You are both full of shit.”

    “THAT’S MY MAN, just what I wanted to say.”

    No, Twinkie — just what you KNEW he wanted you to say.

    @ honeybee:

    “South Vietnam is still occupied – just go there and find out. “

    “So you’ve been there lately?”

    “Was you there Charlie ?”

    It’s immaterial whether I was there. Your question is is off-point and entirely out-of-context (which context I’ve restored, above).

    It’s MOST material whether MAX was there, however.

    I’d asked him if he’d been there (lately) because he had just suggested I go there to confirm his claim. Your distracting interjection only served to allow him to ignore a very relevant question.

  22. Max Said:

    hate everyone outside of Israel

    Yamit82 likes Honeybee !!!!!!!!!!! She doesn’t live in Israel !!!!!!!!!!!

    Max Said:

    Your solution to everything is to irrelevantly quote 50 verses from the Torah every now and then.

    You sound so very envious, Darlin !!!!!!!!!!! Irrelevantly, Yamit82 is a fountain knowledge.

  23. yamit82 Said:

    @ dweller:
    @ Max:

    You are both ..
    Splitting a gut laughing

    Max read a book

    Books Many books, not just newspapers besides of which listening to many first hand accounts and spending 20 years in Asia and SE Asia.

    ideologically incapable of understanding.

    Life and history is not ideology. What could you possibly know about life? You hate democracy, back economic fascism , hate everyone outside of Israel and are mean to those within it. Your solution to everything is to irrelevantly quote 50 verses from the Torah every now and then.
    ….

    You’re a mean old man Mr. Mustard.

  24. @ yamit82:

    “Splitting a gut laughing at both you idiots discussing something neither of you understand…”

    And PresentCompany does, right?

    “Max read a book and the other read all about it in prison..”

    Nope. Read “all about it” BEFORE prison.

    That ‘s why I was SENT to prison. . . .

    (In prison, I did more meditating than reading.)

    “… for cowardice.”

    Nope.

    The cowards didn’t go to prison.

    The cowards went to a lotta places.

    But prison wasn’t one of them.

    Some cowards went to Canada.

    Some cowards took deferments or exemptions.

    Some cowards faked health, medical, psychiatric, or fitness issues.

    Some cowards prolonged their university or seminary ‘studies.’

    Some cowards went overseas.

    Some cowards went underground.

    Some cowards took OCS, ROTC, NROTC, etc.

    And some cowards yielded to military induction.

    Those were the kinds of places the cowards went: to AVOID prison.

    The only guys who went to prison over the matter of conscription and Vietnam

    — were those who absolutely refused to run from it.

    The one place the cowards DIDN’T go was prison.

  25. @ Max:

    “If we’d HAD the hearts & minds of the people, then winning the war on the ground might’ve meant something. The reality is that even if we had won every single engagement, without exception, and without giving up a drop of blood — there is no way we could have gotten the people to see things our way. We were forever a day late & a dollar short, and were behind the eight-ball at every stage of the game.”

    “We did [have the hearts & minds of the people].”

    Not so. Maybe in the cities, where the levers of social control are more systemic. Certainly not in the countryside, however, where the bulk of the populace subsisted.

    “your are talking from leftist revisionism.”

    No. Already told you, Max, I don’t have (and never had) any use for leftist ‘history.’

    The only thing of lasting value I ever derived from the left was their understanding of the need to put in the time & the effort of organizing — doing the scut work, and laying foundations. They were right about that (but only that).

    “you need to read Sorely – it’s the whole picture and the only thorough history of the war”

    “Whole”? “thorough” — compared to what?

    So you’ve read other accounts as well? — David Halberstam, Bernard Fall, et al.?

    “You need to stop having ‘opinions’ and start learning.”

    Isn’t that an ‘opinion’?

    “South Vietnam is still occupied – just go there and find out. “

    So you’ve been there lately?

    One day the commies will fall just like everywhere else and the people will take back their country.”

    You sound like a reformed Communist yourself. I used to know some folks who talked that way.

  26. @ dweller:
    @ Max:

    You are both full of shit.

    Splitting a gut laughing at both you idiots discussing something neither of you understand and are ideologically incapable of understanding.

    Max read a book and the other read all about it in prison for cowardice, when he wasn’t bending over for one of the fellas.

  27. dweller Said:

    If we’d HAD the hearts & minds of the people

    We did – your are talking from leftist revisionism.

    “Uncle Ho ” was in the NORTH – he had no hold on the South ideologically. You are talking through your hat – you need to read Sorely – it’s the whole picture and the only thorough history of the war after both political and military after Westmoreland. You need to stop having “opinions” and start learning.
    ..
    South Vietnam is still occupied – just go there and find out. One day the commies will fall just like everywhere else and the people will take back their country.

  28. @ Max:

    “Yes, we did have some significant military victories — often overlooked (or minimized) by the media; granted.

    But we had arrived at the party WAY too late to make a lasting difference.”

    “Wrong. That is not a political narrative but the facts of history. You and the rest of the public simply never cared to find out the facts after the left gave Vietnam to the Communists.”

    NOT wrong. And I do know the facts of history. Studied them with great care at the time; never relied on the left for that.

    Most of what you (and Sorley) talk about, however, is the fighting itself, the operational element of the war. I have acknowledged our military successes [see above]. But you seem to think that winning the war was the whole shootin’ match. It wasn’t. The whole shootin’ match consisted of “winning the hearts & minds” of the people; we DIDN’T.

    If we’d HAD the hearts & minds of the people, then winning the war on the ground might’ve meant something. The reality is that even if we had won every single engagement, without exception, and without giving up a drop of blood — there is no way we could have gotten the people to see things our way. We were forever a day late & a dollar short, and were behind the eight-ball at every stage of the game.

    — Politically, the country was lost before we ever came on the scene. Once we arrived, we tried, but never managed to develop a market-based nationalism to rival Uncle Ho’s stalinist variety. (And the French had never even tried.) After 40 years of organizing, Ho was WAY too well-established within the socio-cultural matrix. He had done the patient, dogged, painstaking grunt work on the ground — and it showed. There’s just no substitute for that; never been, never will be — and it is the height of self-delusion to ignore the fact.

    If we’d gotten into it at the end of WW2, after the Japanese had been removed, there might’ve been a real possibility. If FDR had taken DeGaulle in hand and said, ‘Look, pal, we’ll help you out — but you’re gonna have to start preparing the Viets for independence,’ there could well have been a real possibility of preventing the country from going Communist.

    But FDR died in the harness, and Truman had his hands full in all sorts of places — all-the-while learning the ropes in a job that neither he nor anybody else had ever expected him to DO when elected (he’d been VP scarcely 80 days when FDR checked out).

    “We won the war we beat back every attempted invasion – we only had to supply occasional air power and some materiel -South Vietnam had developed an effective armed force and was finally capable of defending itself…”

    But not capable of governing a people sufficiently enchanted (rightly or wrongly) with an idea they preferred to the free market.

    “The genocides were in at least three countries, and were and are the unavoidable natural consequence of communists taking power”

    A residual American force in Vietnam would’ve inhibited that. There was no reason to pull out abruptly, even if were to NOT continue active operations.

    “first opportunity you will see [south Viets] shake off the Northern Yoke ”

    Anything’s possible, Max, but I think you’re kidding yourself. If there’s to be a change it will more likely be country-wide. The Doi-Moi policy [“Renovation”] of 1986, e.g., shows promise of a transition from a command economy to a market-based one; that, in turn, may tend to promote or foster increased political relaxations as well. (Or not; market innovation in China hasn’t made THAT country any more free politically.)

    “…they have always been two separate countries.”

    Not really. Same language. Same primary Kinh ethnicity. Same minorities. The only substantive difference is geographical: the nearer physical proximity of the North to China & Russia.

    “Sir Robert Thompson on Dec 30 1972, after 11 days of B-52 bombing on Hanoi said the War was tactically over – ‘it was won,’ militarily, it was over.”

    It’s NEVER ‘over’ till you occupy the place with grunts (as we did in Japan & germany). That was never in the cards.

    “To use your words – In Vietnam a very real & substantive victory was INDEED surrendered.”

    No comparison to Iraq. Had we stayed in Iraq, a military victory COULD have been a necessary prelude to the kind of gradual cultural (and eventual political) change that only a continued presence and patient steadfastness can make possible.

    In ‘Nam, the most stunning military victory imaginable would’ve availed us nothing beyond itself. There’s no way we were going to parlay that into a political victory. Toldja: we were Johnny-come-latelys from the very day our “advisors” first touched down on Viet soil, and time had taken its toll, politically speaking. Bob McNamara’s own memoir [In Retrospect] freely acknowledges as much. And he would know. . . .

  29. Max Said:

    The Vietnam war was won by the USA and given up to the enemy in ’73.
    Same thing was done in Iraq – the victory was surrendered.
    8-12 million people were massacred in SE Asia because of the American Withdrawal but it was OK because the papers didn’t report on it, the leftists rewrote history and went back to smoking pot. The trouble now is that the Islamics have followed us home. We need boots on the ground , we need their oil and we should never leave the ME til Mecca is fried into dust

    YAWLS THE MAN !!!!!!!!!!!!!! I agree 100% !!!!!!!!!!!

  30. dweller Said:

    Stay we should, but not for their oil.

    We need their oil so that they don’t have it. Wealth gives them power – armies and WMD. If they have nothing but sand- they are nobodies – we must keep them as nobodies.

  31. dweller Said:

    That was the narrative of the right. Just as wrong-headed as that of the left.

    Yes, we did have some significant military victories — often overlooked (or minimized) by the media; granted.

    But we had arrived at the party WAY too late to make a lasting difference.

    On Vietnam:

    Wrong. That is not a political narrative but the facts of history. You and the rest of the public simply never cared to find out the facts after the left gave Vietnam to the Communists.
    Lewis Sorley “A Better War” – read it – it is foremost on my bookshelf, – the later history fully documented from declassified MACV (Vietnam Command Center recordings) definitely shows the war was won by General Creighton Abrams after the bumbler Westmoreland was removed. This is the definitive work of the latter stage of the war though there is is more from Sorely and others. The war was fully won by ’73 when it was given away at the Paris Peace Talks by an uncaring leftist negotiator.

    You , like everyone else simply don’t know. How could you know unless you go and find out and examine the source material of history? The same goes for the majority of “opinions” on this board – they are based upon “facts” given to them by the media and public school education which also defines and selects what is supposed to be important out of a vast array of actual significant information.
    ..
    Agree or disagree, if anyone has not read Sorley then they might as well not have an opinion about Vietnam.

    What amazes me is how the leftists rewrote history after ’75. There is even a popular notion that the “Vietcong” won the war when General Abrams and the newly organized South Vietnamese militias had exterminated them by ’70 or ’71 (After that it was only NVA regulars).

    We won the war we beat back every attempted invasion – we only had to supply occasional air power and some materiel -South Vietnam had developed an effective armed force and was finally capable of defending itself but when we withdrew and threw it all away – the morale evaporated and it feel apart.
    The genocides were in at least three countries, and were and are the unavoidable natural consequence of communists taking power – they did the same thing in China Russia etc. That is the nature of totalitarians.
    North Vietnam with occupied South Vietnam is now one of the poorest countries in SE Asia with an extremely oppressed population. South Vietnam is still occupied and the first opportunity you will see them shake off the Northern Yoke – they have always been two separate countries and still are just like the Two Koreas. The leftist narrative that the West interfered with their “unification” is a monstrous calumny.

    From “A Better War”
    Sir Robert Thompson on Dec 30 1972, after 11 days of B-52 bombing on Hanoi said the War was tactically over – “it was won”, militarily, it was over.
    ….
    To use your words – In Vietnam a very real & substantive victory was INDEED surrendered.

    .

  32. @ Max:

    “Good thing too, because a US ground invasion would likely repeat the disastrous Iraq occupation policy).”

    “Foul! Unproven assumption.”

    Unproven, yes.

    But a safe enough bet, as long as we continue taking prisoners

    — and THEY continue not to.

    Level the playing field, and this occupation becomes winnable.

    “The Vietnam war was won by the USA and given up to the enemy in ’73.”

    That was the narrative of the right. Just as wrong-headed as that of the left.

    Truth is, the Vietnam War was won by Ho Chi Minh & the Viet Minh in 1954.

    No way it could’ve turned out otherwise. Ho wasn’t good for Vietnam, but he had been organizing since the 1920’s; there’s simply no substitute for that — he was dug in too deep. His quasi-Stalinist nationalism was well-established long before the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu.

    Yes, we did have some significant military victories — often overlooked (or minimized) by the media; granted.

    But we had arrived at the party WAY too late to make a lasting difference.

    “Same thing was done in Iraq – the victory was surrendered.”

    Apples & Oranges; not even remotely the same thing. In Iraq, a very real & substantive victory was INDEED surrendered.

    “8-12 million people were massacred in SE Asia because of the American Withdrawal”

    Not because of the FACT of the withdrawal, but because of the NATURE of the withdrawal: thoroughly precipitous & ill-considered. We left nothing to provide for the protection of those who had relied on us. An outrage, a disgrace, a heartbreak.

    — DIDN’T HAVE TO HAPPEN THAT WAY.

    In fact, this is the ONLY sense in which there is similarity betw Vietnam & Iraq. We abruptly pulled up stakes.

    In Iraq, we should’ve stayed for at least 40 years. (And if we go back, we SHOULD stay that long.)

    It’s now 70 yrs since 1945, and we are STILL in Germany & Japan. We stayed long enough to have a significant effect on the culture. And we did.

    Because that’s what it TOOK.

    “we need their oil and we should never leave the ME til Mecca is fried into dust.”

    Stay we should, but not for their oil.

    Canada is the 6th largest oil-producing country in the world; doesn’t need anybody else’s.

    And USA has more than enough oil & natural gas reserves to power, heat & light the country for the next 100 years and more.

    — What we lack is the will to face down the votaries of the ersatz religion of Environmentalism, and DEVELOP those domestic oil & gas resources. But that’s another discussion, for another day.

  33. Good thing too, because a US ground invasion would likely repeat the disastrous Iraq occupation policy)

    Foul! Unproven assumption.
    To Isolationists who have bought a ticket to extinction it was disastrous.
    To those who wish to survive the coming apocalyptic clash the only thing disastrous was leaving.
    The Vietnam war was won by the USA and given up to the enemy in ’73.
    Same thing was done in Iraq – the victory was surrendered.
    8-12 million people were massacred in SE Asia because of the American Withdrawal but it was OK because the papers didn’t report on it, the leftists rewrote history and went back to smoking pot. The trouble now is that the Islamics have followed us home. We need boots on the ground , we need their oil and we should never leave the ME til Mecca is fried into dust.