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“I only regret that I have but one face to palm for my country.”
Friday, June 13, 2014
Hey!
At least future generations will have an intact stabbed-in-the-back, we-won-on-the-battlefield, Democrat-CongressAdministration-wouldn't-support-our-ally mythos.
Hey, this is how wars end in the 21st Century - not with one side victorious and the other side crushed & driven before you, with lamenting by their women, but with a declaration of victory and retreat from the battlefield by one side, and a quick seizing of the opportunity thus provided by the other side.
Hey - it is all Bush's fault, according to most sources, and it will till be Bush's fault when Baghdad falls.
And if that happens right around the 2016 elections here, well, what difference at that point will it still make?
Some years ago during Bush's administration I was talking to a dyed in the wool liberal about the aftermath of Iraq and Afghanistan (which at the time were still heads up fights)
He was a big proponent for getting out then.
I pointed out that I had supported the initial instance of war - and while I could admit that at least the invasion of Iraq had been based on false premises, we had done it, and now we had to live with those consequences.
He wondered what that meant, and I explained that at this point we could pull out completely (now or some point in the future) and have wasted all that blood and money completely.
Or, we could be responsible for what we had done, and we could build up those countries into something that might someday stand on its own.
He asked me how long that would take.
I told him no one had ever actually done it. Most of the colonys that the Brits owned had more or less collapsed when they pulled out. Those that hadn't still weren't necessarily burgeoning democracys. (There were some exceptions brought up like India - but Africa is a great counter example on the whole). But we had destroyed the governments that had exisisted so Morally it behooved us to put something in its place, and then protect it until it could stand on its own, and that could take fifty years on the near side.
His response was that we'd never do.
I pointed out we used to. And it worked, more or less. See Germany, Japan, and South Korea. I agreed we probably wouldn't.
I think just about every professional realized that the Iraq commitment was 10 years of full fledged support. Because that's how long it takes to build teh keystone members of a professional military, and a secualrized and effective military (something not found in Arab nations) can drag a nation into modernity (as Turkey did after the Ottoman empire was taken apart).
Problem is, we only got halfway there before fully bailing on the project (and about a quarter of the way before having every effort to forward the program undermined deliberately by Congress).
And now the New York Times is claiming they have vid of Russian tanks being given to the ethnic Russians.
I wonder if China and the NORKs will start getting froggy, now that the full scale of Obama's poltroonery has been exposed? Sucks to be in Taiwan or Seoul right now ...
At the end of nam we had somewhere north of 20% inflation and jobs were pretty scarce, as I recall. Could have been regional, but as I recall Jimmy got elected to "fix" the mess and did an Obama 1 number on us.
Or at least that is the hairball this senile old cat barfed up.
Oh they read history, they WANT to repeat it - it's how Progressives operate. The losses don't matter, only the results - and cave-in and collapse are the kind of results they like - a crisis not to waste, but to prove a "point" and leverage another round of death and destruction as they celebrate failure.
Angus: As someone who graduated high school in 1971, I can tell you that the economic situation in the 1970's was very bad - on the brink of disaster in 1971, when it was still possible to get drafted and killed in 'Nam, turning to disaster in 1973. However, that had much more to do with OPEC suddenly tripling the price of gasoline than with the wind-down in Vietnam. Having a liberal-fascist President didn't help.
I can't say if it was worse then than now overall. In southwestern Michigan it's better now. (I'm an EE in plant that is manufacturing millions of electronics parts for Chrysler, Hyundai, and VW.) In the Detroit-Flint area, it's worse now than then, even though the American auto companys seem to be doing better. Up north in Otsego County where I used to live, there hasn't been a local economy since 2007 aside from welfare and selling tourists gas and fast food.
We got out of the '70s with the dollar intact because the Saudis helped us create the petro-dollar, while they were publicly bad mouthing us for supporting Israel, they were privately saving our asses.
After Nixon abrogated the Bretton Woods agreement, the price of a barrel of oil was the only thing propping it up.
The petro-dollar was why Bush the Younger did not land like a ton of bricks on the Saudis after 9-11, when the Saudis' Frankenstein's monster got out of control, and knocked down two skyscrapers.
Gee, I wonder where those hand-held SAMs came from? Ukraine is going to make Afghanistan look like a picnic, and of course, the CIA and Blackwater/Academi are in there now and stirring the pot, and teaching counter-insurgency.
Hey, this is how wars end in the 21st Century - not with one side victorious and the other side crushed & driven before you, with lamenting by their women, but with a declaration of victory and retreat from the battlefield by one side, and a quick seizing of the opportunity thus provided by the other side.
ReplyDeleteHey - it is all Bush's fault, according to most sources, and it will till be Bush's fault when Baghdad falls.
And if that happens right around the 2016 elections here, well, what difference at that point will it still make?
So, if we're reliving the early 1970's I guess I better see if mom still has any of those hideous clothes she dressed my brother and me in.
ReplyDeleteI can put them on her grandchildren.
Some years ago during Bush's administration I was talking to a dyed in the wool liberal about the aftermath of Iraq and Afghanistan (which at the time were still heads up fights)
ReplyDeleteHe was a big proponent for getting out then.
I pointed out that I had supported the initial instance of war - and while I could admit that at least the invasion of Iraq had been based on false premises, we had done it, and now we had to live with those consequences.
He wondered what that meant, and I explained that at this point we could pull out completely (now or some point in the future) and have wasted all that blood and money completely.
Or, we could be responsible for what we had done, and we could build up those countries into something that might someday stand on its own.
He asked me how long that would take.
I told him no one had ever actually done it. Most of the colonys that the Brits owned had more or less collapsed when they pulled out. Those that hadn't still weren't necessarily burgeoning democracys. (There were some exceptions brought up like India - but Africa is a great counter example on the whole). But we had destroyed the governments that had exisisted so Morally it behooved us to put something in its place, and then protect it until it could stand on its own, and that could take fifty years on the near side.
His response was that we'd never do.
I pointed out we used to. And it worked, more or less. See Germany, Japan, and South Korea. I agreed we probably wouldn't.
And here we are.
Well, when you elect people defined by the only war we intentionally lost I would expect to see a repeat. I am pretty sure Brugdahl is Kerry redux.
ReplyDeleteHistory doesn't repeat, it rhymes.
ReplyDeletegvi
A more terrifying case where the troops came home feeling undefeated and back stabbed by the leadership is in 1919.
ReplyDeleteBetter make a list of who's a corporal now to keep an eye on them in sports bars.
Jon --
ReplyDeleteI think just about every professional realized that the Iraq commitment was 10 years of full fledged support. Because that's how long it takes to build teh keystone members of a professional military, and a secualrized and effective military (something not found in Arab nations) can drag a nation into modernity (as Turkey did after the Ottoman empire was taken apart).
Problem is, we only got halfway there before fully bailing on the project (and about a quarter of the way before having every effort to forward the program undermined deliberately by Congress).
McThag,
ReplyDeleteHence my choice of the "stabbed-in-the-back" verbiage. ;)
As I told someone today, those who don't bother to read history, are doomed to repeat it... Sigh...
ReplyDeleteNot to mention the positively Weimar economic situation that might be on the horizon that we didn't have at the end of 'Nam.
ReplyDeleteAnd now the New York Times is claiming they have vid of Russian tanks being given to the ethnic Russians.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if China and the NORKs will start getting froggy, now that the full scale of Obama's poltroonery has been exposed? Sucks to be in Taiwan or Seoul right now ...
Angus:
ReplyDeleteSome of the links on my blog might be useful if you want to move your IRA into metal ... bad times ahead.
At the end of nam we had somewhere north of 20% inflation and jobs were pretty scarce, as I recall. Could have been regional, but as I recall Jimmy got elected to "fix" the mess and did an Obama 1 number on us.
ReplyDeleteOr at least that is the hairball this senile old cat barfed up.
Oh they read history, they WANT to repeat it - it's how Progressives operate. The losses don't matter, only the results - and cave-in and collapse are the kind of results they like - a crisis not to waste, but to prove a "point" and leverage another round of death and destruction as they celebrate failure.
ReplyDeleteAngus: As someone who graduated high school in 1971, I can tell you that the economic situation in the 1970's was very bad - on the brink of disaster in 1971, when it was still possible to get drafted and killed in 'Nam, turning to disaster in 1973. However, that had much more to do with OPEC suddenly tripling the price of gasoline than with the wind-down in Vietnam. Having a liberal-fascist President didn't help.
ReplyDeleteI can't say if it was worse then than now overall. In southwestern Michigan it's better now. (I'm an EE in plant that is manufacturing millions of electronics parts for Chrysler, Hyundai, and VW.) In the Detroit-Flint area, it's worse now than then, even though the American auto companys seem to be doing better. Up north in Otsego County where I used to live, there hasn't been a local economy since 2007 aside from welfare and selling tourists gas and fast food.
markm:
ReplyDeleteWe got out of the '70s with the dollar intact because the Saudis helped us create the petro-dollar, while they were publicly bad mouthing us for supporting Israel, they were privately saving our asses.
After Nixon abrogated the Bretton Woods agreement, the price of a barrel of oil was the only thing propping it up.
The petro-dollar was why Bush the Younger did not land like a ton of bricks on the Saudis after 9-11, when the Saudis' Frankenstein's monster got out of control, and knocked down two skyscrapers.
Oh, Now that Obama has his plate full:
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/N5pkR8EXVd4
Gee, I wonder where those hand-held SAMs came from? Ukraine is going to make Afghanistan look like a picnic, and of course, the CIA and Blackwater/Academi are in there now and stirring the pot, and teaching counter-insurgency.
As usual, the US is run by fucktards.
Pft, since when has a stab-in-the-back myth ever hurt anyone except for that one time?
ReplyDelete