Category: Military History

Howard Dean, failed presidential candidate and the chair of the DNC, has declared that the Americans have been defeated in Iraq.

Saying the “idea that we’re going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong,” Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean predicted today that the Democratic Party will come together on a proposal to withdraw National Guard and Reserve troops immediately, and all US forces within two years.

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“I’ve seen this before in my life. This is the same situation we had in Vietnam. Everybody then kept saying, ‘just another year, just stay the course, we’ll have a victory.’ Well, we didn’t have a victory, and this policy cost the lives of an additional 25,000 troops because we were too stubborn to recognize what was happening.”

Dean says the Democrat position on the war is ‘coalescing,’ and is likely to include several proposals.

“I think we need a strategic redeployment over a period of two years,” Dean said. “Bring the 80,000 National Guard and Reserve troops home immediately. They don’t belong in a conflict like this anyway. We ought to have a redeployment to Afghanistan of 20,000 troops, we don’t have enough troops to do the job there and its a place where we are welcome. And we need a force in the Middle East, not in Iraq but in a friendly neighboring country to fight (terrorist leader Musab) Zarqawi, who came to Iraq after this invasion. We’ve got to get the target off the backs of American troops.

Well, I’d like to respond to four aspects of this. First, as John Hinderaker at Power Line points out, defeatism was once frowned upon in American society, not trumpeted by the head of a major party. Second, I would really like an explanation of how a withdrawn force in a neighboring country is expected to combat the terrorist bastard Zarqawi while he wreaks mayhem in our wake in Iraq. This is nothing but a complete lack of a developed line of thought, thrown out for political expediency that deserves to backfire more that a gutteral Iowa scream. Third, as a former Guardsman and close buddy of a Guardsman currently returning from Iraq, I am disgusted by Dean’s patronizing characterization of the reserve components. I’d like to hear Dean try to sell that tripe to Lt. Col. Jeffrey Breor of the Texas Army National Guard’s 56th Brigade, returning from Iraq with tales of both the unit’s fine performance and progress on the ground. The Guard and Reserve don’t belong in a conflict like Iraq?!! I’ve got a little newsflash for the DNC chair: the Guard and Reserve go through the same training as members of the active service and are held to the same standards; the key difference in proficiency stems from training time after new troops return from their initial training and the accompanying unit cohesiveness. This is overcome to a large degree already, as the reserve units spend a substantial period uptraining before rotating to the sandbox. There is one substantial difference in National Guard training, and that is the one day a year spent on spent on riot control procedures, as the true base of former Governor Dean cannot be trusted to behave civilly in the political sphere. Oh yeah, before I forget, let’s not miss a chance to praise the brave troopers of the Kentucky Army National Guard’s 617th MP Company, who kicked ass while in Iraq.

My fourth point with Dean’s bold stance of being decidedly meek is that, while in line with the established mythologies of both Viet Nam and Iraq, it stands in stark contrast to the true lessons of history and the reality of the nature of the current Iraqi situation. Frederick W. Kagan addresses this painstakingly in his “Iraq Is Not Vietnam” piece (hat tip to Jeff Goldstein).

When american ground forces paused briefly during the march to Baghdad in 2003, critics of the war were quick to warn of a quagmire; an oblique reference to the Vietnam War. Virtually as soon as it became clear that the conflict in Iraq had become an insurgency, analogies to Vietnam began to proliferate. This development is not surprising. Critics have equated every significant American military undertaking since 1975 to Vietnam, and the fear of being trapped in a Vietnam-like war has led to the frequent demand that U.S. leaders develop not plans to win wars, but exit strategies, plans to get out of messes.

There is no question that the Vietnam War scarred the American psyche deeply, nor that it continues to influence American foreign policy and military strategy profoundly. CENTCOM’s strategy for the counterinsurgency effort in Iraq is an attempt to avoid making Vietnam-like mistakes. Proponents of other strategies, like combined action platoons or oil spot approaches, most frequently derive those programs from what they believe are the right lessons of Vietnam. It is becoming increasingly an article of faith that the insurgency in Vietnam is similar enough to the insurgency in Iraq that we can draw useful lessons from the one to apply to the other. This is not the case. The only thing the insurgencies in Iraq and Vietnam have in common is that in both cases American forces have fought revolutionaries. To make comparisons or draw lessons beyond that basic point misunderstands not only the particular historical cases, but also the value of studying history to draw lessons for the present.

Kagan goes on to look at the historical roots, composition, support and capabilities of the insurgencies we face in both Viet Nam and Iraq. The stark differences give lie to the supposedly authoritative but defeatist talk of Howard Dean. Kagan’s effort is somewhat lengthy, but pretty much worth every word. As an aside, my thoughts on exit strategies can be found here. I challenge anyone to provide a successfully executed war where an exit strategy was the guiding force and was followed to fruition.

Howard Dean has accepted defeat. The American military has achieved success after success. The Bush administration has remained steadfast in its policy that Iraq is a key piece in the war against radical Islamic terror and that we are succeeding and progressing on the ground, though they’ve done a poor job of propagating the news.

The American people will have to decide whether to move forward or find defeat after unprecedented success, a defeat that will reinforce unto our enemies the lessons they learned from Saigon ’75, Beirut ’84 and Somalia ’93 — bloody the Americans and they will cowardly run away, tail between the legs. And our children will have to live or die with that decision.

Yes, it is in the hands of the American people. However, it is only fair that they are given the full story to make that decision. Today, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asked the all-too-negative media to present the full story that the American people haven’t been given, opened schools and not just exploding cars.

As the United States wages its first war with widespread 24/7 news coverage, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld urged the media to ensure it’s telling the whole story about Iraq, not just focusing on events that make dramatic headlines.

Rumsfeld, speaking at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University’s campus here Dec. 5, said troops frequently ask him why the American people aren’t getting a more accurate picture of what’s happening in Iraq. They question why violence seems to get the heaviest coverage, while “good news” stories about successes tend to go unreported.

The secretary noted the media’s indispensable role in keeping people informed and holding the government to account. Many in the media have done “excellent reporting” in Iraq, and some have been killed in the process, he said.

“But it’s important also for the media to hold itself to account,” Rumsfeld told the group.

“We’ve arrived at a strange time in this country, where the worst about America and our military seems to so quickly be taken as truth by the press and reported and spread around the world,” the secretary said. Often this reporting occurs with little or no context or scrutiny, let alone correction or accountability, even after the fact, he said. Speed appears to be more important than accuracy or context to some reporters, he said, and their reports can spread around the globe, regardless of their validity.

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In May, rioting and several deaths resulted from what Rumsfeld called “a false and damaging” news story about a Koran being flushed down a toilet at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In yet another instance, a recent New York Times editorial implied that the U.S. armed forces were using tactics Rumsfeld called “reminiscent of Saddam Hussein.”

Similarly, news reports that focus simply on terror attacks and bombings don’t paint an accurate picture or tell the whole story of what’s happening in Iraq, the secretary said.

“You couldn’t tell the full story of Iwo Jima simply by listing the nearly 26,000 Americans that were casualties over about 40 days … or explain the importance of (Gen. Ulysses S.) Grant’s push to Virginia just by noting the savagery of the battles, and they were savage,” Rumsfeld said.

Similarly, the secretary said, telling the story of what’s happening in Iraq by focusing only on how many Americans have died leaves much of the story untold. Just as important, he said, is the story of what those troops died for and what they lived for.

It is the resposibility of the American populace to decide between possible success and Dean’s failure. Rumsfeld is correct — it is only fair, both for my future children and the honor of our military’s courageous efforts and sacrifices, that the supposed American media paint a fair, full and accurate picture to provide Americans the information needed for their monumental decision.