Redstate

because more often than not it is superficial, senstational and spineless, and loves hearing the sound its own voice more than listening to the ideas and views of those its covers.

But, do you really believe this: "They are in a race to destroy Western civilization, not because it needs to be destroyed but because they believe they can."? You are saying the members of the press--most of whom, it seems, live middle class or even upper lives, with all the materialistic trappings--wants to ruin their comfort (that is, civilization and all its financial and pyschological securities) just for fun, or to show how much power it has?

Yeah, right.

... reasonable explanation can you offer for their behavior? Short of openly declaring allegience to Osama bin Laden they have done everything they can to undermine our efforts.

John
---------
Democratic civilization is the first in history to blame itself because another power is trying to destroy it.
... Jean-François Revel

How many times will you see some rowdy child do something in front of his parents no matter how much trouble he knows he will get in for it just to prove that he has the power to do so?
Also, it is highly probable that these members of the Press don't realize that if they succeed then they will ruin their own livelihoods. Last one of them I ran across couldn't look beyond today and his current deadline.

Then you've got the folks who genuinely feel guilty for everything they have when others have so little.

Just because something is incredibly Stupid and/or unbelievable doesn't mean someone won't do it.

"Always be honest with yourself even if you are honest with no one else...
...It helps you keep track of your lies..."
--Myself

it is just Vietnam all over again, ain't it?

and the liberals learned the wrong lesson from Vietnam.

"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle

when you have your head where the sun does not shine.

_______________________________
If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"?

so much for your most intelligent retort and for showing me the errors of my way and shinning on me the light of reason. I stand corrected and most humbled.

The brookings institute has month by month casualty figures. They don't tell the whole story but the piece they illustrate is quite interesting. If you are interested which I suspect youre not.

you would understand that Tet was a stunning defeat for the Communists. After Tet the Viet Cong was never again a viable force on the battlefield and the cadres of the NVA that took part were decimated. Tet was a defeat for us only in the fevered minds of the press. The biggest loser in Tet was jounalistic integrity and truth.

But the greatest victory in Tet was for future generations of evil men who took the lesson that they could not beat America on the battlefield but they could count on the American press to make up the difference and deliver victory for them.

John
---------
Democratic civilization is the first in history to blame itself because another power is trying to destroy it.
... Jean-François Revel

you seem to be either ignorant or just don't care that the Iraqi infrastructure is in better shape today that it's ever been (that's electricity, clean water, etc). Access to real health care is better as is access to education for all Iraqi kids.

Always happy to shin the light of reason, what ever that might be.

_______________________________
If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"?

Where did you hear this, that Iraqi infrastructure is "in better shape today than it's ever been"? Would you kindly provide your sources?

Is John Kerry running again? Sorry, couldn't resist.

"I will guarantee you that John Kerry will be president of the United States." - Nancy Pelosi

and the refusal of the administration to play hard ball.

John
---------
Democratic civilization is the first in history to blame itself because another power is trying to destroy it.
... Jean-François Revel

but there is a section on this site called "blogs" that's where you have the opportunity to write about what you want to write about.

If you think you have the capacity to contribute more than a couple of stolen grafs presented sans context, have at it.

But in other big news, hold on to your seat here, there is a national election right here in America in just three weeks from now. So maybe election related stuff is important on a political blog. Ya think?

I was quoting a news account from Fox News. In it, Gen. Maxwell says the plan to secure Baghdad has failed to meet our expectations. Also, he complains that after the Army captured 3 of Sadr's lieutenant's, the Maliki government forced us to release them.

This is a genuine question and I hope you take it in that spirit: what "context" am I missing here, Streiff?

"Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made." -- Immanuel Kant

streiff is nice. I'm not.

The threadjack ends now. Go write a diary or let me know, and I'll deactivate your account.

We cool?

-----------
Even those who learn from history are surrounded by those doomed to repeat it.

for my bottom line.

If I have to explain context to you I guess you are disqualified from the whole blog thing, aren't you?

Message received! Thanks for not banning.

"Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made." -- Immanuel Kant

some to agree with. As I'm pressed for time I'll limit myself to one observation and one point of fact.

The observation. Modern wars are fought of ideology so in that sense Iraq is similar to Vietnam is similar to most wars of the last 50 years. I don't know this is much more than a throwaway statement on the order of saying they are similar because people are getting killed. Personally I think the only similarities are they are both hot and they don't speak English.

The fact. The VC did not take the American embassy. The did make it onto the embassy grounds but they did not "take the embassy" and they were not North Vietnamese. And if you try to weasel your way out of this misstatment I will Moe-Lane your butt.

I disagree that modern wars are fought on ideology alone. Iraq War I wasn't war fought on ideology. Hussein tried for a land grab against an oil rich nation. This was unacceptable to the west on many levels, primarily because of Kuwait's oil reserves. Granted there are not many wars that the United States would fight currently that could be deemed of national interest, given our economic and military prowess. But that doesn't change the fact that there is a similarity between these two wars as opposed to the first Iraq War.

On point 2 I will certainly concede the error. I was speaking more from an imagery standpoint than an actual military standpoint but I will certainly concede the error.

I'm not sure why you need to threaten me.

"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were and ask why not." George Bernard Shaw

...that is comment-worthy, but I'll stick to one thing.

Your argument about the inevitability of defeat in Vietnam hinges on one thing about Tet: the incursions into Saigon, and the American Embassy grounds in particular.

From LBJ's memoirs:
In Saigon a Viet Cong suicide squad in civilian clothes blasted a hole in the wall surrounding the American Embassy compound and entered the grounds. Army military police and US Marine guards prevented them from entering the Embassy building itself and killed all the attackers.

Johnson goes on to describe the far more frightening incursion into Hue', where the Communists held the Imperial Citadel for 26 days, and brutally tortured and murdered several thousand civilians.

But by February 1968, many voices on the Left (particularly in the US Senate) had already been raised against the war effort. I don't buy that the attack on the Embassy was a galvanizing moment that frightened the nation into losing faith, and certainly not that it catalyzed people in 1968 into comparisons with the situation in 1965. This strikes me as an inappropriate projection of our current experience with an unpopular war (in which the opposition has been bitterly vocal from the war's first moments) backwards in time.

Go get the film of Walter Cronkite's prime-time editorial (I can't remember if it was on 60 Minutes or the CBS Evening News) at the time of Tet. (IIRC, it took place some days before Johnson's historic speech on the evening of March 31.) You remember, it's the one where Cronkite says frankly and straightforwardly that our eventual peace negotiations with Hanoi (which at that time had not begun) would be conducted from a position of weakness, not strength. That was a true defining moment in our loss of the Vietnam War.

In short, America's citizenry will not need a highly visible military defeat (such as the putative fall of an Embassy) to throw in the towel on the Iraq War, any more than they did in Vietnam. Then as now, the job can be accomplished by a steady drumbeat of negative press, making skillful use of the incredible and uncanny power of televised images (pioneered in Vietnam) to induce the suspension of critical thinking.

are the newsrooms of the WAPO, NYT, CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC. Unfortunately, the enemy will always hold the high ground and be constantly supplied with ammunition of ink, paper delivered by english speaking collaborators and propagandists.

It is on these battlefields that America and the free world will lose, not on the battlefields jungle and sand.

Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.

So how do you propose to win on those battlefields?

accept the premise established by the partisan press, and then expect to win on their home turf. At best, you may secure a draw, but even that is unlikely.

Memorize this page from Ronald Reagan's playbook:

Bypass the filter of the partisan press, take your message directly to the American people and expose the agenda journalists for who they really are.

Above all, "set the record straight"--- immediately.

Never allow a lie, even those that seem innocuous, to stand long enough to become a KnownFact™.

***

"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so." - Ronald Reagan

and as much as I like Bush this is one of his greatest faults.
He and the staff allow theses things to go unchallenged.

The other day I think Erick asked Tony snow why the NYT were still in the WH press room after some of the things the newspaper has done. The response was that the WH correspondents didn't do the deed and it was better to have them there to get the WH point of view. I disagree with Snow on this, the newspaper should clearly understand there is a penalty.

John
---------
Democratic civilization is the first in history to blame itself because another power is trying to destroy it.
... Jean-François Revel

the NYTimes should be constantly forced to publicly defend its agenda journalism, revisionist history and obfuscation of reality. That should become a permanent feature of the White House Press Briefing.

The same could be said for the rest of the partisan media, but the NYTimes is especially dangerous given its propensity for the unauthorized disclosure of classified intelligence and its apparent "love-affair" with America's enemies.

***

"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so." - Ronald Reagan

I didn't say that Tet was a military defeat. It was, however, a political defeat. I don't think people "gave up" per se. But the political argument between the Hawks and Doves changed with Tet.

Tet was an utter defeat for the North militarily. The VC stopped being an effective fighting force after Tet. And the NVA was only able to perform primarily defensive actions for several years.

"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were and ask why not." George Bernard Shaw

You said rather clearly that the (nonfactual) capture of the American Embassy during the Tet Offensive turned the tide of public opinion against the war in this country. You then went on to develop a strategy for defeat in Iraq that doesn't depend on such an emblematic military setback, given that insurgents in Iraq are unlikely to produce one.

Your well-known and much-admired penchant for creatively reading history is on display here, of course. Rather than engage these points, I would remind you of the point of this thread, which is George Stephanopoulos' characteristic attempt to cast doubt on our enterprise in Iraq by association with an historic failure, and also by playing a ham-handed game of gotcha with the President of the United States.

The situation in Iraq is now an exercise in the maintenance of stability in a critical region of the world on terms congenial to us (viz., freedom for the Iraqi people). This is what really makes it different from Vietnam, which was militarily complicated by our unwillingness to bring preponderant force to bear on the situation (for fear of igniting a wider war).

In Iraq, we've already won the war and must now win the peace. American strength in Iraq will lead to more strength, both in the region and globally, whereas in Vietnam weakness led only to more weakness. We have the ability to prevail in Iraq, and our costs in strictly military terms are eminently bearable. But the cost of disengagement, even the gradual one you envision, is exceedingly high, in several different dimensions.

We've discussed at tremendous length around here what our strategic goals in Iraq should be. (I think that much more needs to be said for the goal of maintaining a permanent direct presence in the heart of the Middle East, but this isn't the thread for that.) The point on this thread is that elements of the press, who for better or worse have a lot of power to sway public opinion, are choosing to oppose and ultimately defeat our efforts by deliberately misreading the situation.

John
---------
Democratic civilization is the first in history to blame itself because another power is trying to destroy it.
... Jean-François Revel

that I was wrong about the American embassy issue, although as I said I think you guys missed my point.

And it seems that none of you guys want to address the actual point of my comment regarding the politics of both wars.

"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were and ask why not." George Bernard Shaw

The reason not to engage your actual point about the politics of Vietnam and Iraq is that your point is incoherent.

The most glaring similarity between the 2 is that both wars were primarily politicially driven. What I mean by this is that there was no clear national interest at stake. Both wars were driven by a political belief that victory was essential to achieve a greater victory. In the case of Vietnam the greater victory was the supression of Communism. In the case of Iraq it was to bring the war against Islamic terrorism to the Middle East(Note: I realize there were many reasons for our entry into Iraq but this is the reason that we are still there today.)

The problem is that when a war is fought based on political ideology it is unavoidable that many people will oppose the war based on their political ideology. These people believe that the war is wrong because the reasons for being in the war are wrong. And the longer the war continues the stronger they believe this.

The people who politically support the war, otoh, will continue to support the war until it is bitterly clear that the war is lost or unwinnable. They will do so because they believe that the reasons for the war are too important to discard.

It's entirely your interpretation to suppose that there is/was no national interest at stake in Iraq or Vietnam. First, let me correct your history a little.

"Suppression of Communism": We were engaged in a Cold War at the time, and our overall strategy (containment of an expansionist ideology) called for (among other things) confronting both the USSR and Communist China in their various proxy wars. The downfall of this particular strategy as it played out in Vietnam is that it specifically called for an avoidance of direct military confrontation that could lead to nuclear war, particularly after it almost did just that, in Cuba. Johnson, Macnamara, Rusk, et al, followed this rule by not committing the kind of force levels that could have actually delivered a clear military victory in Vietnam.

What was the national interest at stake in Vietnam? Our freedom. For you to suggest that "suppression of Communism" was a mere political desideratum to the people who approved the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution is either idiocy or moral relativism of the worst kind. (Since you've often displayed plenty of the latter and very little of the former, I have a pretty clear guess on where you stand.)

What about Iraq? As you say, there are many very good reasons for our efforts there, but let's make it easy and stick to the one you cite: bringing the war on terror to the Middle East. I'm not going to argue tactics and strategy here. But as with Vietnam, we're dealing with an expansionist ideology that is striking at us through our interests. Unlike Vietnam, they've also struck directly at us. To what extent does the suppression of terror not constitute a national interest but merely a political goal? Only if one is idiotically convinced that we face no real terror threat, or believes that Islamic terrorism is morally equivalent to our efforts to eradicate it. Once again, you're no idiot, so I can guess where you stand.

So given that your argument about the political basis for both Vietnam and Iraq is based on denying that a clear national interest is at stake in either conflict, you won't get anywhere except with people who accept your premise.

Now let's look at two cases where you have perceived a clear national interest. On this thread, you cited Gulf War I, a case of reversing the takeover of an oil-rich country that we depend on for a critical resource. Do you remember the oft-voiced rallying cry of President Bush (pere) in late 1990? "This aggression shall not stand." Our clear national interest here was not the strategic resource, Hawk. It was our stake in a stable and free world. Do you remember how many people of your own political persuasion shouted "No blood for oil!" at that time? By your own logic, one could even say that natural resources are a political interest rather than a clear national interest.

And (at the risk of being unfair to you) I'll point out that on another thread recently, you excused (or at least expressed an understanding for) the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Your point was that in the prior several years, we had acted to contain Japan's acquisition by force of strategic resources like petroleum and rubber in the Pacific. So continuing your logic, a clear national interest (natural resources) was at stake for Japan in attacking us. Moral relativism again. Japan had no more right to pursue an expansionist military policy in the late 1930s than Saddam Hussein did in the summer or 1990, or than China does today in the Spratley Islands, the Sea of Japan, and elsewhere.

So in any given situation, you define "clear national interest" in whatever way is convenient for your argument. But the way you use the phrase suggests that a war fought for clear national interests is automatically better than one fought for non-clear (what you call "ideological") reasons. That tells me that you think wars will always be opposed at home unless they are assented to broadly by all (which is the practical meaning of your phrase "clear national interest"). But as we've seen, one man's clear national interest is another man's political interest. It begs the question for you to make specious assumptions about what are "clear national interests" shared by all and what are not, and argue on that basis.

To relate this (at long last) to the point of this thread: George Stephanopolous is pursuing a naked political interest of his own: namely, to oppose the policies of the government. In keeping with the article of faith that journalists constitute a fourth estate that serves as a necessary check on government, you might even say that Steph and his ilk are waging war on our government, not in pursuit of a "clear national interest" but in rather in pursuit of power for themselves: the power to dominate the national conversation and condition our behavior as they see fit. Or is this yet another case of Flyerhawk seeing a political interest as a clear national one?

You make a lot of assumptions that are just plain wrong.

What was the national interest at stake in Vietnam? Our freedom. For you to suggest that "suppression of Communism" was a mere political desideratum to the people who approved the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution is either idiocy or moral relativism of the worst kind.

Ok. Explain how our freedom was at stake in Vietnam. And please leave out any use of a domino theory since that is purely a political belief, one that wasn't really borne out.

Unlike Vietnam, they've also struck directly at us. To what extent does the suppression of terror not constitute a national interest but merely a political goal? Only if one is idiotically convinced that we face no real terror threat, or believes that Islamic terrorism is morally equivalent to our efforts to eradicate it. Once again, you're no idiot, so I can guess where you stand.

Because Iraq wasn't part of the terrorist group that was attacking us. The linkage necessary to make this claim is purely political in nature.

And (at the risk of being unfair to you) I'll point out that on another thread recently, you excused (or at least expressed an understanding for) the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

That is poor form. Making an observation does not, in any way, mean that you excuse or justify the act.

So continuing your logic, a clear national interest (natural resources) was at stake for Japan in attacking us.

They perceived it to be, yes. They had a national objective of controlling the Pacific rim. They could not achieve that objective with America preventing them access to certain critical resources.

Do you remember the oft-voiced rallying cry of President Bush (pere) in late 1990? "This aggression shall not stand." Our clear national interest here was not the strategic resource, Hawk. It was our stake in a stable and free world. Do you remember how many people of your own political persuasion shouted "No blood for oil!" at that time?

It is sophistry to think that oil was not the primary reason for taking on Saddam. If Iraq was some tinpot dictatorship in Southern Africa, invading another tinpot dictatorship there would have been some crocodile tears shed and little else. And while a small minority of people were screaming "No blood for oil" the VAST majority of people of were very supportive of the war.

So in any given situation, you define "clear national interest" in whatever way is convenient for your argument. But the way you use the phrase suggests that a war fought for clear national interests is automatically better than one fought for non-clear (what you call "ideological") reasons.

I made no value judgement on any of the wars in question. I will say that a war fought for clear national interests will usually get broader support as most people will accept the reasoning for war whereas a war based on more ideological grounds will have less support because not everyone agrees.

It begs the question for you to make specious assumptions about what are "clear national interests" shared by all and what are not, and argue on that basis.

I make no assumptions at all. There was a perceived clear national interest reason for going into Iraq. WMDs. When that dried up so did the clear national interests. So the reasoning changed. But it changed in such a way that you needed to be of a certain political stripe to accept the reasonings.

"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were and ask why not." George Bernard Shaw

Blackhedd says,

-"What was the national interest at stake in Vietnam? Our freedom."

This made me laugh. I agree with many of your points, Blackhedd, but this one strains your credibility. You claim that those who disagree are "idiots", but then you don't connect the dots for your own argument. Exactly how in the heck was America ever threatened by a communist Vietnam?

And this may seem childish, but I'll remind you that we did in fact lose Vietnam to the communists. Do you think America has been significantly threatened or hurt by a communist Vietnam in the 30 years since?

that America lost the war in Vietnam when in about '68 or so it stopped granting deferments to graduate students. At that point, the opposition to the War in this country moved to a whole new and much more powerful demographic; those who could keep their darling baby boy in school for however long it took to avoid military service. The schools were well aware of this, and if you could pay the freight and made some pretense of doing something, you could stay in school. As long as the War only effected the poor and the patriotic, America could stay in it. Once it began to effect darling baby boys with silver spoons in their mouths, it was all Hell in the streets and the American resolve wilted.

In Vino Veritas

...validating this hypothesis? It doesn't feel right to me because "opinion leadership" in this country (aka, the Left, notwithstanding LBJ's status as an iconic liberal) had already turned noticeably against the war by mid-1967.

Also remember that there was an acute global financial crisis in the winter and spring of 1968 that saw the devaluation of sterling, a threat to devalue the dollar, and the potential for an austerity budget that had all of America scared for its wallets. LBJ had been lobbying as hard as he could (and that is saying something) for a large tax increase for nearly two years by this point, and he finally got it in May 1968. (Someone please correct my memory here if I'm off on the date.)

It's fascinating to compare today's understanding of the Vietnam War, in which the history has been written by the winners (America's media and academic Left wing), with actual contemporary accounts. Johnson, and nearly all of his advisers (men known today as Left-wing heroes for the most part), lived in constant dread of backing down from the conflict right up till the time he left office. He rightly feared that the Communists would exploit even tiny signs of weakness, but even more he feared that he would be impeached if he backed down. Things have changed a bit, haven't they!

One of the things today's "experts" never stop talking about is our heartless bombing of the North. In fact, there is ample documentary evidence that Johnson and his team (he was constantly reaching out to Congress and to trusted outsiders) agonized endlessly over when and how to reduce the bombing, and what to get in return. They knew, as President Bush knows today, that you never get anything for taking the pressure off. And in fact there were several episodes when, largely for domestic political reasons, LBJ halted bombing and got completely suckered by Hanoi. The Communists rightly interpreted this behavior as signalling that our position was ultimately weak. It's easy to underrate just how bold Hanoi was at the time in arriving at this estimate of American resolve (although many have pointed out that they beat the French the same way). Nowadays, it's taken for granted by every low-end tinhorn in the world that the US can be shamed into submission by having our television stars tell us that we're not being nice.

It's fascinating to compare today's understanding of the Vietnam War, in which the history has been written by the winners (America's media and academic Left wing), with actual contemporary accounts. Johnson, and nearly all of his advisers (men known today as Left-wing heroes for the most part), lived in constant dread of backing down from the conflict right up till the time he left office.

I don't think I know a single Left-wing type that has a favorable opinion of LBJ. They generally ignore his civil rights record and his great society plans and focus on Vietnam.

"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were and ask why not." George Bernard Shaw

...about whether LBJ is in fact respected by leftists, I take it you're conceding my main point, which is that Johnson continued fighting the war in no small part because he was afraid not to.

The pressure that Johnson faced was from a Congress and a public that was in no mood to accept the media's (and Bobby Kennedy's) calls for failure. And (as Nixon perceived) this continued to be true throughout 1968. Whether the same is true today will be determined in a little more than two weeks.

LBJ faced considerably more pressure to carry on the fight.

Whether that is good or bad is a matter of opinion.

"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were and ask why not." George Bernard Shaw

I think you give far too much import to the college crowd. But that's just my opinion.

John
---------
Democratic civilization is the first in history to blame itself because another power is trying to destroy it.
... Jean-François Revel

I really wouldn't want to win.

John
---------
Democratic civilization is the first in history to blame itself because another power is trying to destroy it.
... Jean-François Revel

Did you think perhaps, of starting a pool three years ago... on how long it would take the American public to swing away from Bush and his policies, give control of congress to the Dems, and thereby loose us the war?

Just wondering, because although many of us were betting that it would take longer than it has, the risks should have been apparent to everyone. Blame the media, the libs, the Iraqis, whoever you want, but we were doomed from the very start.