As the last word on "Bring it On" from September, which strangely enough is prescient and more true now than then. http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/0903/18cleland.html SIZE=1] Mistakes of Vietnam repeated with Iraq By MAX CLELAND The president of the United States decides to go to war against a nation led by a brutal dictator supported by one-party rule. That dictator has made war on his neighbors. The president decides this is a threat to the United States. In his campaign for president he gives no indication of wanting to go to war. In fact, he decries the overextension of American military might and says other nations must do more. However, unbeknownst to the American public, the president's own Pentagon advisers have already cooked up a plan to go to war. All they are looking for is an excuse. Based on faulty intelligence, cherry-picked information is fed to Congress and the American people. The president goes on national television to make the case for war, using as part of the rationale an incident that never happened. Congress buys the bait -- hook, line and sinker -- and passes a resolution giving the president the authority to use "all necessary means" to prosecute the war. The war is started with an air and ground attack. Initially there is optimism. The president says we are winning. The cocky, self-assured secretary of defense says we are winning. As a matter of fact, the secretary of defense promises the troops will be home soon. However, the truth on the ground that the soldiers face in the war is different than the political policy that sent them there. They face increased opposition from a determined enemy. They are surprised by terrorist attacks, village assassinations, increasing casualties and growing anti-American sentiment. They find themselves bogged down in a guerrilla land war, unable to move forward and unable to disengage because there are no allies to turn the war over to. There is no plan B. There is no exit strategy. Military morale declines. The president's popularity sinks and the American people are increasingly frustrated by the cost of blood and treasure poured into a never-ending war. Sound familiar? It does to me. The president was Lyndon Johnson. The cocky, self-assured secretary of defense was Robert McNamara. The congressional resolution was the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. The war was the war that I, U.S. Sens. John Kerry, Chuck Hagel and John McCain and 3 1/2 million other Americans of our generation were caught up in. It was the scene of America's longest war. It was also the locale of the most frustrating outcome of any war this nation has ever fought. Unfortunately, the people who drove the engine to get into the war in Iraq never served in Vietnam. Not the president. Not the vice president. Not the secretary of defense. Not the deputy secretary of defense. Too bad. They could have learned some lessons: • Don't underestimate the enemy. The enemy always has one option you cannot control. He always has the option to die. This is especially true if you are dealing with true believers and guerillas fighting for their version of reality, whether political or religious. They are what Tom Friedman of The New York Times calls the "non-deterrables." If those non-deterrables are already in their country, they will be able to wait you out until you go home. • If the enemy adopts a "hit-and-run" strategy designed to inflict maximum casualties on you, you may win every battle, but (as Walter Lippman once said about Vietnam) you can't win the war. • If you adopt a strategy of not just pre-emptive strike but also pre-emptive war, you own the aftermath. You better plan for it. You better have an exit strategy because you cannot stay there indefinitely unless you make it the 51st state. If you do stay an extended period of time, you then become an occupier, not a liberator. That feeds the enemy against you. • If you adopt the strategy of pre-emptive war, your intelligence must be not just "darn good," as the president has said; it must be "bulletproof," as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claimed the administration's was against Saddam Hussein. Anything short of that saps credibility. • If you want to know what is really going on in the war, ask the troops on the ground, not the policy-makers in Washington. • In a democracy, instead of truth being the first casualty in war, it should be the first cause of war. It is the only way the Congress and the American people can cope with getting through it. As credibility is strained, support for the war and support for the troops go downhill. Continued loss of credibility drains troop morale, the media become more suspicious, the public becomes more incredulous and Congress is reduced to hearings and investigations. Instead of learning the lessons of Vietnam, where all of the above happened, the president, the vice president, the secretary of defense and the deputy secretary of defense have gotten this country into a disaster in the desert. They attacked a country that had not attacked us. They did so on intelligence that was faulty, misrepresented and highly questionable. A key piece of that intelligence was an outright lie that the White House put into the president's State of the Union speech. These officials have overextended the American military, including the National Guard and the Reserve, and have expanded the U.S. Army to the breaking point. A quarter of a million troops are committed to the Iraq war theater, most of them bogged down in Baghdad. Morale is declining and casualties continue to increase. In addition to the human cost, the war in dollars costs $1 billion a week, adding to the additional burden of an already depressed economy. The president has declared "major combat over" and sent a message to every terrorist, "Bring them on." As a result, he has lost more people in his war than his father did in his and there is no end in sight. Military commanders are left with extended tours of duty for servicemen and women who were told long ago they were going home. We are keeping American forces on the ground, where they have become sitting ducks in a shooting gallery for every terrorist in the Middle East. Welcome to Vietnam, Mr. President. Sorry you didn't go when you had the chance. --Max Cleland, former U.S. senator, was head of the Veterans Administration in the Carter administration. He teaches at American University in Washington. [[/SIZE]
This is a horrible tragedy that should be mourned. Sadly, the liberals are once again using an act of terror for partisan gain. Lives were lost in this cowardly act of terror. Only two people are rejoicing after this evil deed: The terrorist and the liberal.
I'm really disappointed by the lack of imagination shown by the Army in force protection of the copters, especially since the adminstration keeps making these claims of thousands of manpads in country. Hopefully things will change with this loss. Suggestions included gunship escorts and *only* flying at night. This last one is humiliating in a country where most of our active ground forces are committed. http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/international.cfm?id=1211622003 High stakes for Iraqi airspace TIM RIPLEY FOR United States and British Chinook helicopter crews in Iraq the drill is now second nature. Whenever they take off, a crewman leans over the helicopter’s tail ramp with one hand gripping a M60 machine gun and a control to trigger decoy flares in the other hand. At the front of the giant helicopter’s cargo cabin, another crewman adopts the same pose out of the right-hand door. It is the crewmen’s job to watch out for the distinctive smoke trails of any surface-to-air missiles. If they see these deadly threats they can instantly trigger their defensive system that fires flares, which will hopefully decoy the heat-seeking missiles away from their helicopter’s hot engines. They also have to watch out for rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire. Take-off is always the most vulnerable moment for the helicopter crews, because their machines have yet to build up the speed and gain the height needed to allow them to manoeuvre out of any trouble. RAF and US army Chinook crews in Iraq have been on high alert against small, portable shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles, known in military jargon as "Manpads", since earlier this summer when Iraqi resistance fighters started firing them at US Hercules transport aircraft landing at Baghdad airport. While the Manpad threat is taken very seriously, a bigger problem in Iraq’s urban areas are unguided, rocket-propelled grenades fired at hovering helicopters. These are thought to be responsible for the loss of an Apache gunship in June and a Blackhawk helicopter last weekend. The danger posed to helicopters by a salvo of rockets fired from high-rise buildings has haunted American helicopter crews since the infamous "Black Hawk Down" incident in Somalia in 1993. So far, the US military has not confirmed how its Chinook was lost yesterday, but it will be very worried that its reliance on helicopters could be called into question. The US army has used helicopters heavily since the Vietnam war but in Iraq their importance has grown because of the guerrilla threat to vehicle convoys. Each day there are dozens of ambushes and bomb attacks on US truck convoys throughout the deadly Sunni Triangle area. Up to now helicopters have provided the US army with the means to move men and people around Iraq in relative safety. Senior commanders and visiting VIPs are always flown around Baghdad to avoid being ambushed in the Iraqi capital’s clogged-up traffic. US combat units rely on helicopters to move them on their daily search-and-destroy missions mounted in the Sunni Triangle. One way to provide added protection to its helicopters would be for the US army to avoid dangerous daylight missions and use their hi-tech night vision systems. This is particularly likely for routine missions by the Chinooks to move troops between bases, such as the one involved yesterday’s attack. Increased use of Apache gunships to fly shot-gun escorts for the big transport helicopters is also likely. The RAF uses Chinook helicopters extensively in southern Iraq and they have also come under attack, but so far only with small arms fire. One was lost in May on a mission to Baghdad when it ran out of fuel and had to make a forced landing in the desert. British commanders, however, have praised the Chinook’s rugged design.
The Bushies are king at using terrorists acts for partisan gain. It's no contest. Heck, the Bushies routinely blame things that happen on their watch on someone else, it can't be their fault, they don't make mistakes - see God, they were ordained to serve.
I'll be honest, I had to look up sophoclean (it didn't hep that you spelled it wrong ) -- to anyone interested, it means famous for wisdom -- and I still don't get what you mean. IOW,
Attention fellow liberals on this great BBS. There's a party at my house on November 8th, a Saturday night, to celebrate the passing of 13 American soldiers. It should be a great rallying point to cheer for more deaths of our troops overseas. If you're a true liberal, you'll be here!!! RSVP at 713-GOP-BLOWS. Thanks.
I'm not sure if you were the one that said this, but I know that many on this board made the distinction that: terrorism = intentional targetting of civillians. (see the terrorism vs. freedom fighter thread). If that definition is indeed the case, how could we call Iraqi's that target our military "terrorists"? Is terrorism now "the intentional targetting of Americans and American allies"?! What happened with that chopper is a terrible thing, and I have great sympathy for the families and loved ones of the troops that were killed. I agree, T_J, that the tragedy should be mourned. Nevertheless, I for one would NOT call it a terrorist action.
Terrorists is just a shorter label than irregular soldiers serving under the command of a terrorist organization.
No, I am not. As I said, I still couldn't figure out the reference. Damn my lack of knowledge concerning ancient Greek dramatists.
Curiously Bush Jr.'s stance on Iraq seems polar opposite of that of his own father just five years ago. Is it true that Dick Cheney is actually president of the United States?
Until the Chinook accident, American soldiers were dying at the hands of these terroriists at a rate no greater than before President Bush uttered those famous words. Give me a break. I heard that two of those recent American deaths were due to sniper attacks <b>aimed at American soldiers who were escorting Iraqi schoolchildren.</b> Ah, those brave Iraqi irregulars, just looking out for their nation's future!
I think American soldiers were dying at the hands of Saddam loyalists as well. I make the distinction because attacking occupying soldiers is part of military action. The ones that kill our engineers, and attack the hotels, red cross, etc. are the terrorists.
Apologies StupidMoniker my spelling is atrocious sometimes. What I meant by that is… As a <I>Freudian slip</I>is “a verbal mistake that is thought to reveal a <b>sexual</b>, unconscious belief, thought, or emotion. So a Sophoclean slip is a verbal mistake that is thought to reveal an <b>intellectual</b>, unconscious belief, thought, or emotion. Thus…
While I would guess that this is sarcasm, I'm not 100% sure of it. Regardless, this is a 'joke' that is in *extremely* poor taste. American service men and women dying overseas should not be the subject of your attempts at humor. This is just classless. Imagine making fun of 9-11 or the Space Shuttle disaster on the day after. This is no different.
Contrary to your belief, T_J, Liberals are not celebrating the deaths of servicemen and women in Iraq. Iraqis, however, are: Iraqi Villagers Celebrate US Copter Hit I've got a question for you T_J... Since we have liberated them from Saddam, why do Iraqi's seem to hate us so much?
Another vile comparison of dead American soldiers to bloody noses. You're complete and utter disregard for the lives of our troops is disgusting. But, I guess this is what passes for "support" in Bush's America. W, the cowardly deserter, told them to bring it on and now they have. How happy you must be.
No sarcasm whatsoever. I have no respect for those in the military (even those that go AWOL during the Vietnam War) and love hearing about them perishing in Iraq. I figured most of you conservatives believe this about liberals anyway, might as well give you reason to believe such a thing.
