“You ask, what
is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory, victory at all costs,
victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be;
for without victory, there is no survival.”
― Winston Churchill
― Winston Churchill
Americans are sick of war. All the polls
say so. All the pundits say so.
As we enter the 13th year of our longest
war in Afghanistan we seem to be going nowhere. Our political leaders led by a
President who is invested in failure, wants to disengage from battle by engaging
the savages who are the Taliban in dialogue. This is the face of a politically
correct war ...fought not to win but for reasons undisclosed to the American
people and in truth, for reasons not understood by those with the
responsibility of now prosecuting this war.
The leitmotif of this conflict is now
taken from the crucible of Iraq where Obama snatched defeat from the jaws of
victory after the surge of General Petraeus and the Awakening of the Sunni
tribes turned the insurgency in the Sunni Triangle from defeat and horror to a
chance for a peaceful, democratic and pluralistic Arab nation in the middle of
the worlds most violent and chaotic region.
We have been
fighting politically correct wars since the end of WW ll which
many say was actually the first, since it gave away the democracies of Eastern
Europe to a regime as murderous and barbaric as the Third Reich. However at
least it can be said that the countries we went to war against in 1941 were
completely and totally defeated. and that is the difference between then and
now.
Politicians prosecute wars today more
than Generals...perhaps they always did...but at least those who were smart knew
that you cannot ask young men and now women to die for their country if the
final goal is not total victory. When total victory is not the end game that is
when war becomes truly immoral. The reasons however for war are always
debatable unless we live in either a dictatorship or a "1984" kind of dystopian
society where as Orwell described it :
"War is peace...Freedom is slavery...Ignorance
is strength.”
Such is the situation we find our selves
in today with regard to the aforementioned Iraq. A nation that just two short
years after we abruptly left under the flimsiest of reasons solely for the ego
of a President who needs to be impeached, is now facing the specter of
dismemberment by either Iran or al-Qaida or both.
At this moment, the ISIS ( alternately
known as "THE ISLAMIC STATE OF IRAQ AND al-SHAM" or "THE ISLAMIC STATE OF IRAQ
AND SYRIA" or "THE ISLAMIC STATE OF IRAQ AND THE LEVANT") control parts of
Fallujah, Ramadi, Abu Ghraib and have their eyes on Mosul in the north where
they are politically strong. The ISIS is also engaged in tense fighting in
Raqqa, Idlib and Aleppo in Syria against non al-Qaida Islamists militias aligned
with the Syrian Free Army. al-Qaida in the Levant is alive and well contrary to
the assertions of the President of the United States and many fear they will
establish a brutal al-Qaida nation comprised of parts of Syria and Iraq.
The Sunni triangle was freed from the
savage barbarism of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and what became known as al-Qaida in
Iraq by the "Awakening Movement" or "The Sahwa" in 2005 as the local Sunni
tribal Sheikhs, disgusted and repelled by al-Qaida tactics joined with the
al-Maliki government and the U.S. to end the insurgency. By 2009 violence had
fallen by 90% in the country and in the Triangle. Then Obama decided to simply
leave by the end of 2011 after almost 4500 American deaths, almost 33,000
casualties and tens of thousands of Iraqi dead, maimed and wounded.
By 2013, 8,868 Iraqis were dead due to
ISIS terrorism which included suicide bombings. The Nouri al-Maliki government
had tilted to Iran, was losing control of major sections of the country and the
ISIS were sending fighters to Syria to make a terrible situation
worse.
The apologists for Obama will tell
you that all of this was unavoidable. That is both nonsense and
immoral since it attempts to give this terrible President
cover for the insult it commits against those who fought, bled and died for the
people of Iraq.
In his new book former Secretary of
Defense, Robert Gates, relates how this play actor President never really tried
to fashion a way to keep a small force in Iraq to preserve what finally had
become a victory. That he had soured on his military and from 2009 to 2011 let
his political "no nothing" apparatchiks shout down the
Generals and run two wars they knew nothing about, all for political gain.
Gates also relates a conversation he personally witnessed between then Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton and Obama. Clinton told him her opposition to the
Iraqi surge was for political reasons because she knew she would face Obama in
the Iowa caucuses. Obama then admitted that his opposition was also political.
Gates then goes on to relate how Obama
repeated his disgraceful actions in Afghanistan saying "The President doesn't
trust his Commander, can't stand Karzai, doesn't believe in his own strategy
(i.e. the surge) and doesn't consider the war to be his". All this from a
Commander in Chief and a woman who wants to be the Commander in Chief who sent
the best of us into harms way without any intention to ensure that their
sacrifice would mean something.
Leaving 10.000 to 15.000 troops in post
war Iraq would have kept Maliki away from the Ayatollahs and al-Qaida out of
Iraq. It would have seriously hindered the ISIS and the al- Nusra Front from
gaining military superiority within the anti-Assad insurgents and potentially
the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Syrians.
The lies and deception of this President
has directly led to all of the above. He has disgraced and defiled our sacred
dead. He has dishonored the country and their memory. He is not fit to
continue to lead this nation. Hillary for the record is no better and possibly
worse because she is allegedly more intelligent but probably more morally
compromised.
In the end, the moral of this story
is that Americans should never be sent into danger unless
three issues have been resolved. The first is that the war
has a valid reason and purpose for the nation. The second is that those who
give the orders must believe in the mission. The third is that the war will be
fought to win and for no other reason. The first is always subject to the
meaning of what is valid...that is the job for political leaders to define
it and obtain consensus. The second is self explanatory...there is a special
place in Hell for those who send others to their death while not believing in
the very orders they issue. The third stands alone without
footnotes or commentary.
ERLANDSSON
No comments:
Post a Comment