Proactively “From the Sea”; an agent of change leveraging the littoral best practices for a paradigm breaking six-sigma best business case to synergize a consistent design in the global commons, rightsizing the core values supporting our mission statement via the 5-vector model through cultural diversity.
How do you capture such a cascade of foreign policy failure in one, quick little post? We have three main rivals in this world, all three represent in their own way the boot stamping on a human face forever; Russia, Iran, and China. It is one thing when your rivals make progress on their own in the face of steady pressure - but to be the catalyst of your own relative decline and their advance? In just three short years, it is breathtaking. Just three years ago, President Obama mocked anyone who tried to warn of Russia's negative potential. China was rarely seen west of Burma (I refuse to call it Myanmar), and Iran was kept under the stress of being isolated by sanctions. Though there was no one bad decision on the USA's part to help them, one can point to the final push that gave them all a quick rush forward. Working against the will of the American people, the Obama Administration handed Iran a huge victory in sanctions release. We lost face and they gained access to billions. With those billions of dollars, they are about to go on a buying spree of Russian weapons - effectively transferring that capital to Russia. The Chinese have used the opening to secure access to more affordable oil and to cement a foothold in the region that will play out in ways we do not know. Iran and Russia's influence in Iraq has grown. Even Israel is working closer with the Russians now. Already encouraged by American weakness and fecklessness, the Russians moved in to Syria in force. I do not subscribe to the Obama Administration malice, I simply acknowledge its incompetence. We elected a community organizer with contempt for the nation he leads. His foreign policy shop is a horror show of bad ideas from R2P to the present SECSTATE - a man who in a time of war, executed a blood libel against his own Shipmates. Joe Biden in the CINC's ears the last 7 yrs or so? As former SECDEF Bob Gates said;
I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades,”
From leader of the free world, to leading from behind, to sucking our collective thumb on the sidelines. There is a fundamental transformation for you. Bask in it America, you voted for it twice. Own it, as we will be living with the consequences for decades.
SECSTATE Kerry has given up looking for the US military medals he threw hither and yon decades ago, and is looking to replace them with a Norwegian one. In case you have missed this fevered idea, via DefenseNews;
After months of shuttle diplomacy by Kerry and thousands of hours of strategic dialogue led by retired US Marine Corps Gen. John Allen, Israeli leaders are as resistant as ever to trading this more than 80 kilometer-long, up to 7 kilometer-deep stretch of territory for technology, US security assurances and joint force patrols.
Experts here insist Kerry and Allen have not yet submitted a final version of the US security plan, but that earlier proposals prescribing a long-term, technology-enabled, joint force presence fall short of Israel’s fundamental right to defensible borders.
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Kerry said the eventual US security plan would be “state of the art” and would ensure “that the border on the Jordan River will be as strong as any in the world, so that there will be no question about the security of the citizens — Israelis and Palestinians — living to the west.”
Ah yes; once again someone asking Israel to do something that other nations would never do. An Israeli with a near perfect first name and others have a rather air-tight response;
“There’s no way to provide security by way of foreign forces or any combination of advanced technology. If there is a crisis, history has shown us that foreign forces are the first to vanish. ... Satellites, drones and all the other goodies cannot compensate for IDF [Israel Defence Forces] control of the ground and airspace of this vital sector,” said retired Maj. Gen. Uzi Dayan, a former national security adviser who commanded the theater that includes the Jordan Valley.
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“Sensors and drones are no substitute for the physical presence of Israel Defense Forces soldiers. The Jordan Valley is vital to the security of Israel, and we cannot assent to third parties being there in our stead,” the former IDF chief of staff said Jan. 16 in Jerusalem.
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Good googly moogly what a dog's breakfast we saw this afternoon. If you missed it, well, here - bask in a brace of buffoonery.
UPDATE: I forgot this jewel. Note to pretty much everyone - I think General Dempsey forgot his place here ... as it his place professionally in this Republic.
“The tide of war is rising, America is receding,..."
Dr. Charles Krauthammer makes one of the clearer points I have heard about what is going on in the IRN-IRQ-SYR arch.
Watch the below for a demonstration of what impotence is in the body of one of the most important position in what is for now the planet's premier power - and though he is SecState ... at least he was never President.
While we scratch-n-sniff about homosexual marriage and why 7=10=15, the world continues and history drives on increasingly blind to the flabby, loud, overdrawn fat lady in the personal hygiene department at Walmart.
UPDATE: You know, I did this once during the '94 election. An earlier version of this post had me blaming this on the Junior Senator from Mass. - my bust. It is the other Kerrey, this one with the "e" in his name. Can't keep my Democrats straight - the point remains - as does the unchangeable or open to interpretation Koran and Hadith....unlike my post that I have changed to remove, booger like, my mistake. Well, former Senator Kerr(e)y, time to get an adviser on comparative religious studies.
While announcing his support for Clinton on Sunday, Kerrey told The Washington Post in an interview that while he hopes Clinton is the nominee, he would like Obama to have a role - especially because of his ability to reach out to black youth and Muslims around the world.
"It's probably not something that appeals to him, but I like the fact that his name is Barack Hussein Obama, and that his father was a Muslim and that his paternal grandmother is a Muslim," said Kerrey, a former governor and the current president of the New School in New York City. "There's a billion people on the planet that are Muslims, and I think that experience is a big deal."
Ummmm, actually Senator Kerrey - all the above combined with the fact he studied the Koran as a kid in Indonesia and is now a Christian and his raising his kids as a Christian makes him ---- drum roll please ---- and apostate!
Well, they could at least have given me a Hat Tip! Should sound familiar to my regular readers. It is for subscribers only, so instead of the Hat Tip, I will just post their editorial in whole. They write better than I do anyway.
Vietnam: Nothing destroys conventional wisdom like the truth. Those on the anti-war left don’t like to be reminded that the fruits of their policies are death and defeat. But the lie they agree upon is not history.
In 1975, Sydney Schanberg wrote a piece for the New York Times about the consequences for the region of our abandonment of South Vietnam. It bore the Orwellian title: “Indochina Without Americans: For Most A Better Life.” Substitute “Iraq” for “Indochina” and you have the Iraq plank in the 2008 Democratic party platform.
Last Saturday, the Los Angeles Times ran a piece by Andrew J. Bacevich, a Boston University history professor and Vietnam War veteran, that fellow vet John Kerry could have written, and which could have borne a similar title regarding Iraq without Americans. Professor Bacevich takes President Bush to task for reminding the Veterans of Foreign Wars last week that, far from enjoying a better life, the people of Indochina, after they were betrayed by Democrats, became victims of the “killing fields” of Cambodia, inmates of the re-education camps of Vietnam or, if they were lucky, boat people in the South China Sea.
The consequences of following the Democrats on Iraq, Bush said, would result in a similar human catastrophe and a greater terrorist threat to America. Bacevich’s piece is titled “Vietnam’s Real Lessons,” yet it is he who ignores the truth by writing about a “U.S. defeat” in an “unconventional war.”
The U.S. military was never defeated in any battle. Not until 1975, after a Democratic Congress cut off aid in a fit of post-Watergate pique, did Saigon fall to an army of 570,000 North Vietnamese regular soldiers and some 900 Soviet tanks, well supplied and armed by their Soviet and Chinese benefactors.
For two years, South Vietnam stood on its own without U.S. boots on the ground. Had we continued military and economic aid, it would be standing today — like South Korea, which we did not abandon.
South Korea was no Athenian democracy back then, and yet we did not throw it to the wolves. Bacevich says we should look at “the condition of Vietnam today.” He should look at the condition of South Korea.
One of the first actions of the Democratic “Watergate babies” was to vote to deny South Vietnam $800 million in military aid, including ammunition and spare parts. Five weeks after that vote, a surprised and delighted North Vietnam began planning an armored invasion of the South, knowing we had grown war-weary and would not help. Bacevich speaks of a “Republic of Vietnam, created by the United States,” that was not “able to govern effectively or command the loyalty of its people.” Yet, as history shows, Vietnam did not fall to a popular uprising by pajama-clad patriots.
The 1968 Tet offensive by the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese was a military disaster. Gen. Giap failed in his plan to seize and hold 13 of 16 provincial capitals and trigger a popular uprising. The communist forces lost upwards of 50,000 killed and as many wounded.
After Tet, the Viet Cong were effectively finished as a fighting force, with the NVA taking over. North Vietnam’s 1972 Easter offensive also failed.
It was these failures that led to the January 1973 Paris Peace Accord. Butwhena Democratic Congress legislated an end to U.S. operations in Indochina that summer, it also stopped U.S. air support of a friendly Cambodian government under siege by Hanoi and the Khmer Rouge.
Former Rep. Tip O’Neill, D-Mass., who was later to becomes speaker of the House, declared at the time that “Cambodia is not worth the life of one American flier.” There—as they say, professor—is history.
Let’s see, I am with Investors Business Daily, POTUS and fact.
Some of you are with John F'ing Kerry and Sydney Schanberg (what a putz – ignore the shamelessly self-promoting way he presented in The Killing Fields. One of the most brazen displays of autofelation ever put on the screen.
Carry on.UPDATE: Check out what Bacevich has to say about Gen. Petraeus.
The President was correct when he addressed the VFW the other day - specifically on the connection between Iraq & Vietnam.
Recently, two men who were on the opposite sides of the debate over the Vietnam War came together to write an article. One was a member of President Nixon's foreign policy team, and the other was a fierce critic of the Nixon administration's policies. Together they wrote that the consequences of an American defeat in Iraq would be disastrous.
Here's what they said: "Defeat would produce an explosion of euphoria among all the forces of Islamist extremism, throwing the entire Middle East into even greater upheaval. The likely human and strategic costs are appalling to contemplate. Perhaps that is why so much of the current debate seeks to ignore these consequences." I believe these men are right.
In Iraq, our moral obligations and our strategic interests are one. So we pursue the extremists wherever we find them and we stand with the Iraqis at this difficult hour - because the shadow of terror will never be lifted from our world and the American people will never be safe until the people of the Middle East know the freedom that our Creator meant for all. (Applause.)
I recognize that history cannot predict the future with absolute certainty. I understand that. But history does remind us that there are lessons applicable to our time. And we can learn something from history. In Asia, we saw freedom triumph over violent ideologies after the sacrifice of tens of thousands of American lives - and that freedom has yielded peace for generations.
The American military graveyards across Europe attest to the terrible human cost in the fight against Nazism. They also attest to the triumph of a continent that today is whole, free, and at peace. The advance of freedom in these lands should give us confidence that the hard work we are doing in the Middle East can have the same results we've seen in Asia and elsewhere - if we show the same perseverance and the same sense of purpose.
I have said for a very long time (click the Vietnam War label below for extended commentary) that the connection is clear and well defined.
In Vietnam, the war was won militarily thanks to Gen. Abrams, Nixon, and the Servicemembers on the ground who persevered through despite the horrible treatment they received at home. The success of Vietnamization was proved by the success in defeating the North Vietnamese by the mostly South Vietnamese forces during the conventional '72 invasion of the South by the North (with monetary, material, advisory, sea, and air support by the USA and its allies provided to the South).
The war was lost in the District of Columbia. Taking advantage of the post-Watergate weakness in the Republican Executive Branch, and the post-backlash strength of the Democrat Legislative Branch following the '74 election - the Democrat Party cut off all funding and military support to South Vietnam in the '72-75 timeframe.
Being that North Vietnam had all the support it wanted from the Communist World, they were able to take South Vietnam in a conventional invasion in '75. With the fall of South Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos - and the encouragement of Communist proxies in Africa as a result - millions died from the killing field of Cambodia, Ethiopia, Angola, the South China Sea, to the suburbs of San Salvador over the better part of decade and a half.
Though you and your kids may not have been taught that history - there it is - fact. The President just reminded everyone of the facts. If you want to know the hardness of these facts and the impact they are having on those who still have not been held account for the blood they are soaked in, just read the Democrat response to what the President said, even Sen. Kerry (D-MA), who, in case you didn't know, served in Vietnam. The MSM coverage is mixed.
You are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts. Facts are hard things. Learn them; love them; live them.
