The saddest part about what is happening in America today is that it is all so damn predictable. Just look at the latter part of the Vietnam War.
In ’65 the VC attacked with impunity throughout South Vietnam. In ’68 the VC were destroyed after the Tet Offensive and the North Vietnamese were actually considering surrendering… until they watched the American press paint Tet as a disaster for the US! They realized they didn’t have to win, they just had to keep fighting because America would give up! Four years later, after getting their butts kicked repeatedly, the Vietnam War had turned into large-scale pitched battles on the borders of South Vietnam and in neighboring countries between US and North Vietnamese forces. We had eliminated the NVA/VC as a threat inside Vietnam. And, then we abdicated the battlefield. We left. We quit. The North Vietnamese tested us, invaded in ’72, and the South Vietnamese army and US airpower beat the sh!t out of them, so badly that it took them three more years to build up again, with Soviet and Chinese help. They tested us again in ’75, but by then the Democrats led by Ted Kennedy had legislated our abandonment of our ally. We were prohibited by law from any military assistance to South Vietnam, and the North rolled in and rolled over. The result: millions upon millions killed AFTER the war in Vietnam and Cambodia.
There are two lessons of Vietnam. One is ‘Don’t fight a war unless you’re willing to commit the necessary blood and treasure to win.’ The other is ‘Bloody the Americans enough and they’ll quit; they have no stomach for a fight.’
We evidently haven’t learned the first lesson. Bush should have clamped down hard on Iraq, declared martial law, and attacked insurgent/terrorist logistical sites in Syria and Iran.
Our enemies have learned the second lesson all too well. Iran can provide weapons, training, and sanctuary for those fighting us because they know there are no consequences to attacking America or Americans. And, why should they heed the diplomatic calls for them to discontinue their nuke program? Where’s the downside for them? It’s not like the UN would support anything meaningful against Iran.
And before I hear any ‘chickenhawk’ arguments, I was in the military in the early ’80s, and tried to volunteer twice to go as a grunt to Iraq but was turned down because of my age (I’ve been just over the cutoff age even after they raised it). I don’t want to go because I want to be a hero, but because I have a young son and I know that if we don’t finish this now it’s going to be a lot uglier later, and I don’t want his generation to have to face what we should have.
What will it take before America gets serious about the war we’re fighting? Unfortunately, I do think it will take at least one more massive attack on US soil. When (not if) that happens, those deaths will be on the conscience of all of the “cut and run” among us.
