J. D. Pendry

Archive for September, 2006

Moral High Ground

Sunday, September 24th, 2006

“The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism.” Colin Powell

I believe Colin Powell is an honorable and moral man. His comment, though, has me wondering. If the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis for our fight, then I believe it has little to do with the methods we use to interrogate mass murderers that would cheerfully kill many more of us. Instead, it has more to do with a worldview skewed by the conflagration of such comments emanating from the mouths of supposed learned men. General Powell’s statement is a polite, diplomatic way of expressing Ted Kennedy’s sentiments when he held posters of Abu Ghraib abuses in front of television cameras and stated that Saddam’s torture chambers reopened under our management.

I respect John McCain for what he endured in service to our country. But, clarification of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, specifically defining what this means: “(c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment” will not undo the torture that he and others endured at the hands of the North Vietnamese. Nor will it prevent future episodes. Nor will it threaten American morality.

General Powell, Senator McCain and the others insist that if we define for ourselves what Common Article 3 means, we will put our Soldiers at greater risk if captured and we will lose the moral high ground in our war. Thinking like this is why we have difficulty understanding and confronting an evil enemy. It’s why too many of us still cannot grasp what happened on 9/11. The problem is that most of us view the world, which includes our enemies, through our own prism - a national prism that values life, freedom and the moral high ground although that ground is enduring rapid saturation by moral relativism on many fronts. Just ask Rosie. Through our prism we view, but do not see what motivates a religiously driven death cult that hopes to render our infidel world subservient. Their moral high ground, their sworn purpose, is our eradication from the planet. They view the hastening of our end as doing a good thing – a moral thing. It’ll bring about the end and paradise for them. It’s was Ahmadinejad’s apocalyptic prayer for us in front of the U.N. The implications of it totally lost on our Rosies and most Americans who are more concerned about the price of gas and whether or not they should buy CITGO.

“I emphatically declare that today’s world more than ever before longs for just and righteous people with love for all humanity, and above all, longs for the perfect righteous human being and the real savior who has been promised to all peoples and who will establish justice, peace and brotherhood on the planet.

Oh, Almighty God, all men and women are your creatures and you have ordained their guidance and salvation. Bestow upon humanity that thirsts for justice, the perfect human being promised to all by you, and make us among his followers and among those who strive for his return and his cause”.

My prayer is that we come to our senses before it costs us 3million lives instead of only 3000.

I’m not schooled in politics and diplomacy, as is Colin Powell, John McCain and the others who are concerned about losing American morality, but here’s what I conclude. The nation states that would adhere to the provisions of the Geneva Conventions will never go to war against the United States. Go back and read that sentence again please. Those that would engage us in a war (including the Nation State of Radical Islam) would not seek out Lindsey Graham to help determine if they are following the Geneva Conventions. Besides, they probably can’t find their copy. I expect most of you who are reading this have been in a scrap or two in your lifetime. When you were in that eye gouging, hair pulling, biting, testicle-kicking scrap, did you ever stop and think gee, I really need to gain the moral high ground here? Well, that’s where we are. Placed there courtesy of politics and a failed assessment of evil viewed through a prism of decency.

Do we really have to work at gaining the moral high ground from people that would shoot a defenseless nun in the back because the Pope quoted an ancient text? People that would behead three girls walking to school - because they were Christians? People that would torture Soldiers and mutilate their bodies, film it and display it on the Internet? People that indiscriminately bomb women and children and chant god is great while they saw the head off a trussed up non-combatant? Murderers that would kill 3000 people because their god instructed them to? Gaining the moral high ground over a genocidal death cult is a very low standard. I believe America is secure on the high ground. What concerns me is that some in our own country apparently do not believe we are.

We’re not fighting a war against terrorism. That’s another of our mistakes. Terrorism is the manifestation of the death cult that’s defining modern Islam. The enemy in our war is the black hats that keep captive, hopeless and ignorant populations whipped into frenzy and believing that our goal is the destruction of their faith. What we need is a proper view of our enemy through their prism. The prism that says we all need to die. Then, maybe our intellectual and diplomatic leaders can set aside politics and declare that enough is enough.

It’s not our morality that’s at risk. It’s our survival.

*********

Never try to teach a pig to sing. It annoys the pig and it wastes your time.

Posted in General | 1 Comment »

More Jay Byrds

Sunday, September 17th, 2006

Thanks to Mike K. for pointing out the following link:

16 December 1998 - Transcript: President Clinton explains Iraq strike

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/12/16/transcripts/clinton.html

Posted in General | 1 Comment »

Jay Byrds

Sunday, September 17th, 2006

I’m in a bad mood. I missed the first deer at 0630 on Monday morning. A fraction of a second later, I clobbered the second, much bigger one. My F150 is in the body shop getting the deer hair cleaned from what’s left of my grill, bumper, right fender and other assorted parts. The deer wasn’t so lucky. Since then I’ve been making the commute in a steroidal roller skate and feeling like my hind end is dragging on the highway. I need my truck.
As if that wasn’t enough, John, a Bush/Rumsfeld hating liberal fan of the past couple of years emailed. He asked me if I feel like a sap, now that Rockefeller’s report proves Bush lied us into war. No John, I feel like a sap because my state keeps sending Jay and his senior partner Bobby Byrd back to the Senate. Their leadership, combined with that of the Democrats that have led my state for the past 80 years, explains why out of 50 states we rank at the top as the most taxed and at the bottom in per-capita income. It explains why everything in the state has Robert C. Byrd’s name on it including the compost pile in my backyard, and why our youth are escaping the state at a rate practically as high as the human traffic crossing the U.S./Mexican border. We may have to build a fence to keep them here.

I only have space here to talk about one of my state’s Jay Byrds. I’ll aim for the highlights so as not to be too long about it. Be sure to study the linked information and share it with the Johns you know. That didn’t sound right. Share it with the liberals you know.

Jay Rockefeller is a New York transplant to West Virginia, and like many of his colleagues is of inherited wealth, Harvard educated and a career politician. He’s in the news this week for releasing the latest Democrat version of Bush lied and insisting that Iraq and the world would be better off if Saddam was still in power. Americans must suffer from collective attention deficit disorder. Otherwise, there is no explanation for why politicians keep trying to get away with what they do. The adage says if you’re honest, you’ll never have to remember what you said. Jay and his party have selective amnesia.
Unfortunately, the Democrats and specifically the Clinton administration held a different view about whether Saddam was a threat to us and whether or not we should remove him from power. This article is an excellent compilation of the Clinton rhetoric concerning Saddam and Iraq. Oddly enough, the Clinton administration drew these conclusions without the benefit of intelligence manipulated by the Bush administration. Bush wasn’t even there yet, but Jay was a serving Senator. Now peruse the Iraqi Liberation act of 1998 You don’t need to get bogged down reading the whole thing, but make sure that you read the not manipulated by Bush Congressional findings, which include:

“On September 22, 1980, Iraq invaded Iran… In February 1988, Iraq forcibly relocated Kurdish civilians… killing an estimated 50,000 to 180,000 Kurds… On March 16, 1988, Iraq used chemical weapons… killing an estimated 5,000 Kurds… On August 2, 1990, Iraq invaded… Kuwait…”

Yes Jay, Saddam certainly stabilized the region and made us safer. Odd that your political party and administration didn’t quite see things as you now do. Reckon they were manipulating the intel for political purposes? You should have pointed out for them the flaws in their assumptions and tell the rest of us how we were misled – by Bill Clinton et al.

[What if Saddam Hussein] ”fails to comply, and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route which gives him yet more opportunities to develop his program of weapons of mass destruction and continue to press for the release of the sanctions and continue to ignore the solemn commitments that he made? Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction.…If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow…Some day, some way, I guarantee you, he’ll use the arsenal.” President Bill Clinton, February 18, 1998 **(obviously relying on intelligence not manipulated by George Bush)

Fast forward to October 10, 2002, and scrutinize Senator Jay Rockefeller’s speech on the Senate floor concerning the pending Iraq resolution. As the link shows, the speech for the moment is still on his website. It’s also other places, otherwise, it could go to the same place as did John Kerry’s DD Form 214. Maybe he should have reread his own speech. Go read it all. It’ll leave you scratching your head. The Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence reminded us in the speech:

There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years. And that may happen sooner if he can obtain access to enriched uranium from foreign sources — something that is not that difficult in the current world. We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction.

There is another piece to the intelligence business you need to understand. The members of Congressional intelligence committees are privy to high-level intelligence as is the President. Otherwise, what’s the point? When they say they’re not, it’s a red herring. No one in the know can contradict his or her statements without revealing sensitive information. They know that. If the Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence says he didn’t know then what he knows now one must draw two conclusions. He’s lying or he’s an incompetent boob that shouldn’t be allowed into the same state where national security secrets are kept. Unless he has Sandy Berger with him who “was appointed by former President Clinton to vet Clinton-administration documents before those documents were turned over to the September 11 investigating commission.”

Jay adds another interesting twist in 2003. This memo, prepared by Rockefeller’s staff, sets out to politicize intelligence. Not to look for solutions to problems in our intelligence gathering process, as the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence should, but to strategize ways in which to use it to undermine the President and as a result put national security in jeopardy in favor of political gamesmanship. The memo didn’t get much play in the media, not the MSM anyway. It’s clear to everyone except maybe John that Senator Rockefeller is simply following the political strategy laid out in his memo. Again, Democrats are showing us that given the choice between politics and protecting our country, they’ll pick politics every time.

The Senator insists that there were no links between the regime of Saddam Hussein and terrorists. We don’t even need to discuss the obvious, which was his paying of money to homicide bombers. Please Google Ansar Al-Islam and read the tons of available information. You’ll find many reputable sources that show this terror organization in Iraq with links to Al-Qaeda. Here’s the State Department designation of Ansar Al-Islam as a terrorist organization. Here’s an interesting article on the subject, here’s another** and here’s another. If there isn’t enough information out there to convince you of Iraq’s terror links, then maybe a first hand account from the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister might help.

So, let me see if I have this sorted out. Saddam was the biggest threat facing our country and Middle East stability in 1998, according to Clinton Democrats – of which Jay Rockefeller is one. In 2002, Jay Rockefeller – the Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence - gave a convincing speech on the floor of the Senate about our need to take action against the regime of Saddam Hussein in order to protect ourselves in a dangerous, uncertain post 9/11 world. In 2003, politics replaced his concern for national security when he strategized how to use intelligence information to undermine the President during a time of war. It’s too bad that people like John are so full of hatred for our President and our country that they’ll believe him.

Welcome to the Sap Club John.

** Two Weekly Standard articles are linked here, but may not open. If not, post these links into your browser and try again. They’re worth the read.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/

000/000/012/710goolj.asp (How Bad is the Intelligence Report, Stephen F. Hayes, 09/25/2006)
http://www.weeklystandard.com/content/public/articles/

000/000/001/607rkunu.asp?pg=1 (Democrats for Regime Change, Stephen F. Hayes, 09/16/2002)
Copyright © 2006 J. D. Pendry

****

Someone out there absolutely hates your guts. Make sure you know who it is.

Posted in General | 5 Comments »

Defining Moments

Sunday, September 10th, 2006

Each week I write a post for my subscribers. A few weeks ago, I fired one off in a fit of anger and frustration. Its primary target was politicians that I believe demean Soldiers and others who I believe to be a fiddlin’ while the empire is in flames. It appears to have been a defining internet moment for me, although I’ve been doing this for a small audience for years. It’s also earned me some cyber-courage generated labels that I won’t share in this family friendly post. One of my fans told me that I did the country a great service – when I retired. Maybe so. While I was in service – like every other man and woman in the Uniformed Armed Services of the United States – I forfeited my freedom of speech on political subjects and politicians. Now that I’m out, I intend to say what I think. If it’s OK for retired political Generals to say what’s on their minds, then it must be OK for me. Unless you ask Harry Reid. Who may be at this moment sending a letter demanding that I shut up.

Candor is a Soldierly value. Maybe some of it rubbed off on me after all those years of hanging out with people who are candid by necessity. Sometimes the message you communicate needs to hit the intended recipients in the head as if it arrived there on the end of a piece of dimension lumber. Considering the many comments, including the profane name-calling ones I’ve received, many people felt the impact of that 2 X 4. Some agreeably and some not so.

As for my name callers, Dad used to tell me that the bit dog always yelps the loudest. Keep that thought in mind while you ponder the brouhaha about the ABC mini-series The Path to 911 (which I haven’t seen as of this writing – and might not see until the bootlegged copies turn up) and consider that the creator of Fahrenheit 911 sat in the Presidential box at the Democrat party national convention.

I believe the Democrat Party just had themselves another defining moment or maybe they’re just continuing to define politics for us. I might not be correct in my recall, but I don’t remember a former President, former cabinet members and sitting United States Senators demanding that Mikie the Hutt’s crockumentary be pulled from public access because of its inaccuracies. What I recall is Democrats attending the premier, Terry McAuliffe the DNC Chairman hugging Mikie and Mikie sitting next to President Jimmah in the Presidential box at the Democrat National Convention. That’s what I recall, but I am getting old and my memory isn’t always accurate. Of course, as Powerline points out in this post, there really wasn’t too much going on during the 90’s Path to 911, so I guess I don’t understand Mr. Clinton’s concern about the content of a docudrama.

Isn’t suppressing free speech what communists, Islamo-fascists and Castro do? If ABC succumbs to political pressure, how long can it be before Congressional letters start turning up at the offices of web hosts demanding the suppression of websites or removal of other content with which they disagree or that may be critical of their poor performances as public servants? How long before they demand the suppression of radio or news programs they don’t like? Did any of them ever demand censorship of the New York Times? The same Senate leader who proudly announced the killing of the Patriot Act because it infringed on civil liberties is hoping to suppress the free speech of Americans. I heard an ACLU lawyer defending the act in a radio interview. He said this isn’t suppression of free speech; instead, it’s the prevention of defamation. If politicians of all brands were more focused on serving our country than on serving themselves and their monetary contributors, this wouldn’t even be an issue. I have to believe that most Americans are sensible enough to decide for themselves what’s true and what isn’t in a television program. I’m also gullible.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the most horrific mass murder in the history of our country. It should have been for our country and culture a defining moment. It should have led to actions that would forever alter in the minds of the people who only live to see us destroyed that we won’t ever run again and that it’s their destruction that’s imminent. Instead, the people who should be leading the assault against our country’s murderous enemies again chose politics over principle and feigned concern for what might appear on a television program when most folks would have likely been watching the Manning brothers play football instead – but not now. This is the group of people, conventional political thinking tells us, will be in charge of our country in November.

Lord help us.

****

Posted in General | Comments Off

On Your Hands

Monday, September 4th, 2006

What follows is a reposting of a mailing I sent to my private email list on June 24, 2006. I don’t feel a need to explain myself, but I wrote this right after someone sent me pictures of the mutilated bodies of two young American Soldiers. Since the original posting, this letter has made a few laps around the net and been posted in many different places. Other than to my private email list, I originally posted it at Free Republic and it’s been posted there several more times and to a Geocities Website that I once maintained. I can’t even tell you where else because, except for a few Freepers, no one ever asked me if they could repost it. Copyright notices have little impact these days. I’ve even received inquiries from people that heard it read on radio programs. There’s been some minor editing of my original post as it’s traveled around and I’ve seen it renamed several times, “No Punches Pulled Here”,“Axis of Idiots”, “Insight of a Sergeant Major”, etc., etc. frankly I prefer my title because my title is my point.

It’s been pointed out to me in some “fan” mail that I didn’t mention President Regan’s lack of response following the bombing of the Marine Barracks in Beirut, 1983. If Ronald Regan spent his life before, during and after that bombing blaming the United States, belittling American Soldiers and the Administrations that followed his, I would most certainly have had some unkind words to say about him. You see, I’m sort of one dimensional when it comes to the treatment of my country and most particularly when politicians and others disparage the men and women with which I spent half my existence on this planet. I can’t do much in my old, decrepit state to help them with their current mission, but you can bet your butt that I’ll take every opportunity to speak out for them back here where – because of them - we sit safe, fat and happy. They need us to protect their six and confront enemies here at home while they confront our enemies around the world.

It was also pointed out to me that it was the first President Bush that got us into Somalia. That statement is true for as far as it goes. President Bush sent U.S. Forces to Somalia on a humanitarian aid mission. Their purpose was to ensure food and other supplies sent there to aid starving Somalis got to them and not the warlords. It was a President Clinton mission for Army Rangers and Special Operations Soldiers to capture Adid. President Clinton’s Secretary of Defense, Les Aspen, refused these units the Armor support they requested. Support that would have easily broken and extricated them from the ambush where 18 of them died.

So here’s the original unedited post. Thanks for supporting our Soldiers.

Our God and soldiers we alike adore,
Ev’n at the brink of danger; not before;
After deliverance, both alike requited,
Our God’s forgotten, and our soldiers slighted. – Frances Quarles, 1632

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

Jimmy Carter, you’re the father of the Islamic Nazi movement. You threw the Shah under the bus, welcomed the Ayatollah home and then lacked the spine to confront the terrorists when they took our embassy and our people hostage. You’re the runner-in-chief.

Bill Clinton, you played ring around the Lewinsky while the terrorists were at war with us. You got us into a fight with them in Somalia, and then you ran from it. Your weak-willed responses emboldened the killers. Each time you failed to respond adequately they grew bolder, until 9/11.

John Kerry, dishonesty is your most prominent attribute. You lied about American Soldiers in Vietnam. Your military service, like your life, is more fiction than fact. You’ve accused our Soldiers of terrorizing women and children in Iraq. You called Iraq the wrong war, wrong place, wrong time, the same words you used to describe Vietnam. You’re a fake. You want to run from Iraq and abandon the Iraqis to murderers just as you did the Vietnamese. Iraq, like Vietnam is another war that you were for, before you were against it.

John Murtha, you said our military was broken. You said we can’t win militarily in Iraq. You accused United States Marines of cold-blooded murder without proof. And said we should redeploy to Okinawa. Okinawa John? And the Democrats call you their military expert. Are you sure you didn’t suffer a traumatic brain injury while you were off building your war hero resume? You’re a sad, pitiable, corrupt and washed up politician. You’re not a Marine sir. You wouldn’t amount to a pimple on a real Marines butt. You’re a phony and a disgrace. Run away John.

Dick Durbin, you accused our Soldiers at Guantanimo of being Nazis, tenders of Soviet style gulags and as bad as the regime of Pol Pot who murdered two million of his own people after your party abandoned South East Asia to the Communists. Now you want to abandon the Iraqis to the same fate. History was not a good teacher for you, was it? See Dick run.

Ted Kennedy, for days on end you held poster sized pictures from Abu Grhaib in front of any available television camera. Al Jazeera quoted you saying that Iraq’s torture chambers were open under new management. Did you see the news this week Teddy? The Islamic Nazis demonstrated real torture for you again. If you truly supported our troops, you’d show the world poster-sized pictures of that atrocity and demand the annihilation of the perpetrators of it. Your legislation stripping support from the South Vietnamese led to a communist victory there. You’re a bloated fool bent on repeating the same historical blunder that turned freedom-seeking people over to homicidal, genocidal maniacs. To paraphrase John Murtha, all while sitting on your wide, gin-soaked rear-end in Washington.

Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Carl Levine, Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein, Russ Feingold, Hillary Clinton, Pat Leahy, Chuck Schumer et al ad nauseam. Every time you stand in front of television cameras and broadcast to the Islamic Nazis that we went to war because our President lied. That the war is wrong and our Soldiers are torturers. That we should leave Iraq, you give the Islamic butchers – the same ones that tortured and mutilated American Soldiers - cause to think that we’ll run away again and all they have to do is hang on a little longer.

American news media, the New York Times particularly. Each time you publish stories about national defense secrets and our intelligence gathering methods, you become one with the sub-human pieces of camel dung that torture and mutilate the bodies of American Soldiers. You can’t strike up the courage to publish cartoons, but you can help Al Qaeda destroy my country. Actually, you are more dangerous to us than Al Qaeda is. Think about that each time you face Mecca to admire your Pulitzer.

You are America’s axis of idiots. Your Collective Stupidity will destroy us. Self-serving politics and terrorist abetting news scoops are more important to you than our national security or the lives of innocent civilians and Soldiers. It bothers you that defending ourselves gets in the way of your elitist sport of politics and your ignorant editorializing. There is as much blood on your hands as is on the hands of murdering terrorists. Don’t ever doubt that. Your frolics will only serve to extend this war as they extended Vietnam. If you want our Soldiers home, as you claim, knock off the crap and try supporting your country ahead of supporting your silly political aims and aiding our enemies. Yes, I’m questioning your patriotism. Your loyalty ends with self. I’m also questioning why you’re stealing air that decent Americans could be breathing. You don’t deserve the protection of our men and women in uniform. You need to run away from this war – this country. Leave the war to the people who have the will to see it through and the country to people who are willing to defend it.

No Commander in Chief, you don’t get off the hook either. Our country has two enemies. Those who want to destroy us from the outside and those who attempt it from within. Your Soldiers are dealing with the outside force. It’s your obligation to support them by confronting the axis of idiots. America must hear it from you that these people are harming our country, abetting the enemy and endangering our safety. Well up a little anger please, and channel it toward the appropriate target. You must prosecute those who leak national security secrets to the media. You must prosecute those in the media who knowingly publish those secrets. Our Soldiers need you to confront the enemy that they cannot.

They need you to do it now.

Posted in General | 7 Comments »

The Politics of Survival

Sunday, September 3rd, 2006

One of my favorite Mark Twain quotes is, “There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.” That sums up how I feel about politicians on most days. Perusing their low approval ratings, it appears I’m not alone in thought. Not all members of Congress are of the criminal class as Mr. Twain expressed it. On most days, however, the manner in which they go about doing what we hired them to do should be a crime.

I believe that most people we elect aim to be good public servants when they arrive in Washington DC. They mean to be good stewards of our resources, pass sensible legislation, look out for the public safety, defend us… things that our government is supposed to do. Following a few terms in office and a taste of power, pork, and privilege many of them become career politicians. When that happens, you and I lose. America loses.

I don’t much care for political party affiliation. I’ve been a registered Democrat and a registered Republican. Our system with two major parties is the best the world has to offer and works fine, until the politicians screw it up. They screw it up when the focus becomes the sport of politics and ceases to be public service. When the party in the minority has as its focus the destruction of the party in the majority rather than service to our country, the system fails. For a few minutes past 9/11, the system served us. Since then it’s failed us for the simple reason that those within the system are more focused on politics than on the most important problem confronting our country. The politicians of both parties need to understand that if we disengage on any front, which most certainly includes Iraq, in our war against the Islamic fascists we’ll all need to go out and buy dhimmi suits and burkhas.

There’s an awful lot of political prognosticating going on right now. The political pollsters, strategists and pundits are in their glory coming up to November. They’ve temporarily displaced the retired Generals on the cable channels. If their political prophesies hold true, logic tells us we’ll end up with the ultra-anti-war left leading our country. If that happens, we may as well dig in for America’s version of Custer’s last stand.

The ultra left is abandoning candidates who support the war, even if they’re 99 percent liberal otherwise. This is why popular liberal politicians who voted for the war are now publicly against it. The ultra right is threatening to stay away from the polls in November to teach their candidates a lesson for not being conservative enough. This is why conservatives are stumbling over one another while trying to appear more conservative than the next guy is. Both political parties have liberals and both have conservatives. Both have sensible people that have the best interests of the country at heart. Both have people who’d cut a Faustian deal with Satan just to keep his or her job or to put their party in power in Congress or the Whitehouse. Our job is to sort them out and ensure the right people are on the job after November.

People knowledgeable in history are pointing out for us the similarities between the rise of Nazism and the rise of Islamic fascism. There are some marked differences however, the most prominent being that other Western countries did not have large populations of Nazis within their borders and Islamic fascism has been on the rise for over a thousand years, but most notably since 1979. The major similarity is the head in the sand appeasement approach toward them. History can teach us about past errors made in similar situations. With even a general knowledge of history, we should be able to avoid repeating past mistakes. 1938 and 1939 are finally entering the public debate. It’s unfortunate that our current leaders waited until now to bring out what many of us have been talking about for sometime. I think, however, that Americans need to know our more recent history to understand where the wrong choice at the polls will take us.

Republican President Eisenhower supported the French in their Indochina war, right up until their defeat at Dien Bien Phu. He then supported the government of South Vietnam with economic aid and military equipment. When the communists continued to threaten South Vietnam, it was “bear any burden, fight any foe” Democrat President John Kennedy that committed U. S. advisors. Democrat President Lyndon Johnson escalated U. S. involvement dramatically increasing the numbers of troops. He had more U. S. troops in Vietnam than we have currently serving in the Active Army. For all of those calling for more troops on the ground in Iraq let this be a lesson for you. We can put a Soldier on every square foot of Iraqi terrain and still fail behind stupid politics. Republican President Richard Nixon inherited Vietnam, the anti-war leftists and a Democrat Congress. Read very carefully his 1969 speech on Vietnamization of the war. If you have knowledge of current affairs, you can’t help but see the striking similarities between then and now – politically speaking.

Vietnamization was the process whereby we trained, equipped and supported the South Vietnamese so that they could defend themselves and we could leave. Former Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird gives an explanation in this essay suggesting that we might better heed this lesson from Vietnam. Historian Victor Davis Hanson explains how that failure and others led us to 9/11 with a promise of more to come if we quit again. You can read a recap of the legislation Mr. Hanson and Secretary Laird references in this Congressional Research Service paper - legislation that withdrew funding and established timetables and strength levels for U. S. Troops. While Ted Kennedy and John Kerry traded high-fives, with support withdrawn, South Vietnam collapsed and the Cambodian killing fields opened for business. The new politics of survival are about the survival of our country not the politicians. Our country’s survival depends on the choice we make to go to the polls and the choices we make when we get there. Have no doubts. If the wrong group is in power following November elections, they are prepared to repeat the political failures of Vietnam. The difference this time? The communists stayed in South East Asia and killed their own. If we run from the Middle East, the jihadists will bring the battle to our neighborhoods.