To Daniel and Gabriel: on "Winning"

Submitted by mariana (United States), Mar 20, 2007 at 00:49

Having read your questions, Daniel's response and the piece he referred us to, I must say this. The older I get, the more convinced I've become that it's immoral and unethical to field military forces for "police actions" or "incursions" or "wars of liberation" or whatever, if you're not prepared to fight for and to Victory. If it's not important enough to win, don't do it!

France/Algeria notwithstanding [because I don't think anything French affected American thought; don't forget Dien Bien Phu and Mendez-France], the brutal Korean War, ending at the same bloody parallel where it began, after over 50,000 American Dead, hundreds of thousands wounded, and $$billions spent, was the first time America fought a war to "stalemate," and let it end [to still have 37,000 military presence on the {hostile} ground to this date]. This set a terrible precedent and made the disgraceful snatching "defeat from the jaws of victory" in Vietnam possible.

From up close and personal, I watched how "useful idiots," "fellow travelers," and sincere and enthusiastic air-headed young people were led by mostly communist [anti-American, pro-USSR, pro-Mao to their core] elite "planning committees" in Berkeley and SF. Beginning with the HUAC hearings, then the "Free Speech Movement," the "Filthy Speech Movement and then the Anti-War Movement, American youth became radicalized, schools indoctrinated and propagandized instead of educated, and the populous became desensitized.

I was young and dumb and refused to believe that they could cause the American government to take such disgraceful actions, leaving our allies in SE Asia to be slaughtered, and our own dead and wounded to have been sacrificed in vain. To be successful, this desensitization of the American psyche required a lot of double-speak and reordering of the language, ethics and morality, all of which were facilitated by the G*dawful-horrendous state of the schools K 1-12 + Universities, even in the late 60's [where classes would be dismissed to attend "demonstrations"].

There's something very serious going on here. Israeli and American media and people [and consequently gov'ts, consisting of professional whores more interested in reelection than the security of their countries] are bereft of knowledge of history, perspective, or the ability to reason or project likely probabilities from a particular combination of events or actions. Those used to be the kinds of things for which we depended upon our "leaders" to understand and guide us.

Since we are now faced with feckless, ignorant, irresponsible governments, made up of self-obsessed, self-interested charlatans and jackanapes, who lack conviction, foresight or the instinct or compunction to "do the right thing," I think we all need a serious adjustment of our attitudes and orientation. This may sound trite, but "now is the time for all good [folk] to come to the aid of their countries;" and it's going to take a lot of hard work and concerted action. After all, we should be able to organise as well as the "red diaper babies" of the 60's, and some of the same old dogs - turned "pro-palestinian" on top of their anti-American and Anti-Israeli, anti-War "pc" rap, who are now running the equally destructive "peace now" movements. mariana

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