Those who ignore history ...
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by Leon Fisher, Unknown News
leonjfisher@webtv.net
April 30, 2007
We have heard much in recent years of the superiority of American
military power. But the only surviving Cold War super power, with its state
of the art weaponry, now finds itself once again in a life and death
struggle with an enemy that uses mostly low-tech weapons and guerilla
warfare.
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It is obvious the arrogant buffoons who fancy themselves our
leaders have learned nothing from the long and bloody conflict in
Vietnam. The humiliating defeat of American military power and foreign
policy, epitomized by the images of American helicopters taking off from
the roof of the US embassy in Saigon with terrified Vietnamese clinging
to their skids as the triumphant North Vietnamese Army closed in, was
the last act in a
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war that's conclusion had absolutely nothing to do with
peace or honor as liars Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger would have had
us believe.
The Vietnamese learned to avoid US military strength and to
exploit its weakness successfully. The military forces which Lyndon
Johnson ordered to Vietnam were trained and equipped for conventional
warfare with the Soviets in Europe, not for a prolonged guerrilla war in
terrain which favored the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army.
Ignorance of Vietnamese history and culture would further diminish any
chance on the part of the US to win the hearts and minds of the people
which was an absolute necessity in order to win such a conflict.
More
important still was the winning of the political war, which ultimately
turned the American public against the war. In the end, Johnson,
Robert McNamara, Richard Nixon, and all the rest of the Washington Whiz
Kids and Pentagon planners were outfoxed by Ho Chi Minh, a little old
man with a nanny goat beard, who many years before had sent the French
colonialists packing as well.
By the early 1970s America had had enough of the
lies and deceptions of the Washington politicians and the horrendous
violence which it had spawned. Civil unrest at home and the beginnings
of mutiny within the military finally put an end to a war which had been
fought with little or no benefit to anyone except that of the military
industrial complex.
Having eaten their Vietnam war humble pie, Washington
politicians would for the time being, avoid direct military
intervention. Unfortunately this happy state of affairs would not last
long, as Reagan, then the elder Bush, and to a lesser degree, Bill Clinton, would
once more unleash the dogs of war.
Successful military campaigns against
weak third world nations such as Grenada, Panama, Libya, and Serbia,
would once more delude the American people into thinking military
intervention was preferable to that of diplomacy. The successful
conclusion of the first Gulf War would further bring about a mindset
that the US military was invincible.
With the installation of GW Bush in
the White House and 9/11, US intervention in the Middle East was begun
in earnest. The speed in which the US military was able to overthrow the
Taliban in Afghanistan, and the ground offensive which brought US
mechanized forces to the gates of Baghdad in a matter of weeks, would
seem to finally lay to rest the memory of America's national nightmare of
Vietnam.
Capitalizing on this initial success, warlord Bush, outfitted
in military regalia and in the mother of all photo ops, would land on
the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 3, 2003, to proudly proclaim
victory and the end of military operations in Iraq. As it turns out, the
crowing on the part of our illustrious Commander in Chief was somewhat
premature, as the fighting in both Afghanistan and Iraq would continue
and escalate with every passing day.
The Taliban, allegedly vanquished
in October 2001, has re-emerged in ever increasing numbers from their safe
havens in Pakistan, and are regaining control of large areas of
Afghanistan. In Iraq, despite an increase of US military on the ground,
or "surge" as the Pentagon calls it, the violence and deaths are
increasing at an alarming rate with well over 3,000 US combat deaths to
date, as well as Iraqi deaths which may well be into the
hundreds of thousands.
It appears that the specter of Vietnam is once
again rearing its ugly head. The Iraqi insurgency is becoming more
sophisticated and deadly as the war drags on. A powerful roadside bomb,
a mortar round, a rocket, or a burst of automatic weapons fire suddenly
announces the presence of Iraqi insurgents, only to disappear just as
quickly.
Feeding the growing resistance is the disrespect shown towards
Iraq's cultural and religious institutions by occupation forces, kicking
in doors and arbitrarily arresting Iraqi citizens, who are then sent to
prisons such as the infamous Abu Ghraib, to be humiliated and tortured.
Iraqi women are treated almost as badly, having to watch as their family
members are thrown to the floor and hog-tied while they themselves are
humiliated in front of their husbands when subject to body searches.
Mosques, suspected to harbor insurgents and weapons, have been regularly
invaded and fired upon, or outright destroyed.
Contrary to the Bush
regime's minimizing the Iraqi insurgency as just a handful of Saddam
loyalists and dead-enders, the insurgency consists of former Iraqi
military, Shi'ite and Sunni militias, and average citizens
outraged by the occupation, perhaps
seeking to avenge the death of a
family member. Despite centuries-old hatred and distrust, both Sunni and
Shi'ite want an end to the US/British occupation. Although foreign
fighters are known to be operating in Iraq, the majority are ethnic
Iraqis.
Bush's claim that any withdrawal of US forces from Iraq would
bring terrorism to America is as absurd as the Vietnam-era 'Domino
Theory', that if America allowed South Vietnam to fall to the communists,
all of Southeast Asia would follow.
If anything, the invasion of Afghani-
stan
and Iraq has undermined the security of the entire region, handing
militant Islamic fundamentalism a victory that by themselves they would
never have been able to achieve.
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GW Bush and his Neocon advisers, like
Lyndon Johnson 40 years before, are fighting a war which was lost even
before the first shots were ever fired. The arrogance and corruption
which pervades the Washington political establishment, dominated by
corporate and Zionist influence, is once again setting up America for
another military and foreign policy debacle, the negative consequences
of which will be felt for decades.
© by the author.
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Bush's claim that any withdrawal of US forces from Iraq would bring terrorism to America is as absurd as the Vietnam-era 'Domino Theory', that if America allowed South Vietnam to fall to the communists, all of Southeast Asia would follow.
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