President Obama claims he is dedicated to avoiding the mistakes his predecessor George Bush made in the Middle East. Obama is looking at the mistakes, but he is looking at the wrong mistakes.
GW showed his gall by telling Israel to hurry up and get the job done in Lebanon. Lord! This is the same cowboy who early on wouldn’t pull his own trigger in Iraq because he was concerned about matters of conscience, or history, or how many people on both sides may have been killed. Yes, I’ll say what I have always thought – “Shock and Awe” was just a pr phrase. Few were shocked because it was announced beforehand. And I wasn’t awed like I was when I saw the fire-bombing of Dresden or the mushroom clouds on Bikini.
Maybe it was GW’s business school training... like the coarse where CEOs of large corporations order a subsidiary company to do their dirty work so the CEOs can look good at the next annual meeting of the stockholders. Yet all this hesitancy did was cause another protracted pretend-war, where we try to train the untrainable, where the number of casualties was likely to be the same had he gotten serious about winning. The difference is GW’s way spread the funerals out for all sides over years instead of weeks.
Maybe it was GW’s business school training... like the coarse where CEOs of large corporations order a subsidiary company to do their dirty work so the CEOs can look good at the next annual meeting of the stockholders. Yet all this hesitancy did was cause another protracted pretend-war, where we try to train the untrainable, where the number of casualties was likely to be the same had he gotten serious about winning. The difference is GW’s way spread the funerals out for all sides over years instead of weeks.
In the ways of war, this is indefensible. Slow, casualty-free victory is, in itself, a stupid strategy based only on polling politics. In the end, casualties mount on both sides; the war on the ground, and the war in the polls are both lost.
When Bush finally listened to his military leaders, the Iraq “surge” worked. But what was won, was then lost by the new “President elected to end wars, not start them.”
President Obama is playing a variation of this stupid, dangerous game. The Iraq action lasted longer than World War II when the US defeated the combined forces of the Nazis and the Japanese. And now a wider Middle Eastern conflict has flared up right under Obama’s upturned nose.
When Bush finally listened to his military leaders, the Iraq “surge” worked. But what was won, was then lost by the new “President elected to end wars, not start them.”
President Obama is playing a variation of this stupid, dangerous game. The Iraq action lasted longer than World War II when the US defeated the combined forces of the Nazis and the Japanese. And now a wider Middle Eastern conflict has flared up right under Obama’s upturned nose.
Granted, in WWII we had Churchill and Stalin’s help. Two very big guns. FDR and Harry Truman would certainly tell Obama there is no victory in a pretend war, and not to take his gun out of its holster unless he has the will to pull the trigger. Don’t be waving your pea-shooter around like Deputy Barney Fife, expecting your enemy to quake in fear. They won't. Don’t tell your enemy the gun isn’t fully loaded, and on exactly which date you will re-holster it. The enemy will snap at your ankles and bloody you up because they believe you won’t pull the trigger for fear of criticism from abroad and from within.
Hitler and Tojo’s generals may have believed America didn’t have the stomach for war. But FDR fooled them, and when it came to High Noon, Harry Truman, that old haberdasher from Missouri, didn’t give a damn what the world thought – he pulled the biggest damn trigger that had ever been pulled in the history of war, scaring the bejeezus out of them all. Voila! The war ended. And America emerged as the most powerful nation in the history of the world. A status which seems to so upset our current president.
Hitler and Tojo’s generals may have believed America didn’t have the stomach for war. But FDR fooled them, and when it came to High Noon, Harry Truman, that old haberdasher from Missouri, didn’t give a damn what the world thought – he pulled the biggest damn trigger that had ever been pulled in the history of war, scaring the bejeezus out of them all. Voila! The war ended. And America emerged as the most powerful nation in the history of the world. A status which seems to so upset our current president.
Ever since WWII, many of America’s males have been so emasculated by their PC mommies, PC teachers, PC girlfriends and PC media, that they find it impossible to put their finger on the trigger, no less actually pull it. So our presidents send our military forces here and there but with their hands tied behind their backs. Our presidents seem to fear it is they, not our enemies, who will face “justice” in some World Kangaroo Court. President Truman and his Generals Eisenhower, MacArthur and Patton undoubtedly would think we have lost all sense of reason if they could see what we have done to the American military.
Of course some claim that had Gore or Kerry been president instead of Bush, we would not be in these wars. Why, they seem to believe, even Israel and her neighbors would all be at peace today. Because the Left gives the enemy everything it wants just to calm the savage beast. But we all know the ways of Middle Eastern radical politics. As soon as they cash your check, they buy better rockets and start in again until you give more. The same with North Korea. All enemies of liberal States have learned the drill. Countries like America, who can afford it, will try to pacify you with gifts. If history is any predictor, that’s what Gore or Kerry would have done. Funnel money and whatever else it took to Middle Eastern radicals and all the others around the world. Money, technology – recall the “secret” technology transferred to our adversaries in one way or another during the Clinton years – whatever they could have hidden under the table, while on top of the table the conflicts are debated endlessly at the UN whose only real expertise is raping our treasury.
So, while President Bush may have acted like a bumbling breakfast of cornpone – he at least recognized that you can’t buy peace from terrorists.
Don't get me wrong. Don't go to war except as a last resort! I would prefer to see us revise our laws and assassinate radical leaders and despots in their sleep than to see more of our boys die or be physically and mentally disfigured for life. But if you have to go to war, the best way to do it is fast. Get it done as quickly and as devastatingly as possible.
GW should have taken a clue from Harry Truman and his generals – even from his own father! And now President Obama needs to think about this. When you are in a real war, not a pretend war, you are going to lose men and you are unavoidably going to kill civilians. You can spread it out over time and maybe pr-wise it doesn’t look as bad as if you do it all at once. But doing it all at once has the uncanny effect of scaring your enemy into submission. When Harry Truman sent the Enola Gay over Hiroshima, he believed even the most war hardened Japanese would cave when that B29 unleashed the light in God's eye, and they felt the blistering shockwave which changed the world forever. Oh, some still argue that Little Boy and Fat Man weren't the determining factors that ended the war. Maybe it was augmented by the USSR’s declaration of war against Japan which by that time had been pounded mercilessly by convention bombs. Either way, faced with the certainty of an apocalypse, the proud Japanese decided enough death was enough. There can be no doubt dread of B29s overhead hastened the end of the war.
Our current president might take a lesson from Harry Truman. When faced with the choice between funerals on our side or the other side, he chose them. Harry had the guts to pull the trigger and get it over with. Our president might at least try to find his manhood, stop listening to the mommy-thinkers who surround him; he should pay attention to his generals, and to history.
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