“Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it” – George Santayana

January 1961 – Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev pledges support for “wars of national liberation” throughout the world. His statement greatly encourages Communists in North Vietnam to escalate their armed struggle to unify Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh.

January 20, 1961– John Fitzgerald Kennedy is inaugurated as the 35th U.S. President and declares “…we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to insure the survival and the success of liberty.” Privately, outgoing President Eisenhower tells him “I think you’re going to have to send troops…” to Southeast Asia.

The youthful Kennedy administration is inexperienced in matters regarding Southeast Asia. Kennedy’s Secretary of Defense, 44-year-old Robert McNamara, along with civilian planners recruited from the academic community, will play a crucial role in deciding White House strategy for Vietnam over the next several years. Under their leadership, the United States will wage a limited war to force a political settlement.
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However, the U.S. will be opposed by an enemy dedicated to total military victory “…whatever the sacrifices, however long the struggle…until Vietnam is fully independent and reunified,” as stated by Ho Chi Minh.

May 1961 – Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson visits President Diem in South Vietnam and hails the embattled leader as the ‘Winston Churchill of Asia.’

May 1961 – President Kennedy sends 400 American Green Beret ‘Special Advisors’ to South Vietnam to train South Vietnamese soldiers in methods of ‘counter-insurgency’ in the fight against Viet Cong guerrillas.

The role of the Green Berets soon expands to include the establishment of Civilian Irregular Defense Groups (CIDG) made up of fierce mountain men known as the Montagnards. These groups establish a series of fortified camps strung out along the mountains to thwart infiltration by North Vietnamese.

Total number of U.S. soldiers deployed to Vietnam: 536,100: Total number of U.S. casualties in the Vietnam War : 58,220.

June 19, 2014, 11:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m., White House Briefing Room, courtesy, whitehouse.gov.

Good afternoon, everybody. I just met with my national security team to discuss the situation in Iraq. We’ve been meeting regularly to review the situation since ISIL, a terrorist organization that operates in Iraq and Syria, made advances inside of Iraq. As I said last week, ISIL poses a threat to the Iraqi people, to the region, and to U.S. interests. So today I wanted to provide you an update on how we’re responding to the situation.

First, we are working to secure our embassy and personnel operating inside of Iraq. As President, I have no greater priority than the safety of our men and women serving overseas. So I’ve taken some steps to relocate some of our embassy personnel, and we’ve sent reinforcements to better secure our facilities.

Second, at my direction, we have significantly increased our intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets so that we’ve got a better picture of what’s taking place inside of Iraq. And this will give us a greater understanding of what ISIL is doing, where it’s located, and how we might support efforts to counter this threat.

Third, the United States will continue to increase our support to Iraqi security forces. We’re prepared to create joint operation centers in Baghdad and northern Iraq to share intelligence and coordinate planning to confront the terrorist threat of ISIL. Through our new Counterterrorism Partnership Fund, we’re prepared to work with Congress to provide additional equipment. We have had advisors in Iraq through our embassy, and we’re prepared to send a small number of additional American military advisors — up to 300 — to assess how we can best train, advise, and support Iraqi security forces going forward.

American forces will not be returning to combat in Iraq, but we will help Iraqis as they take the fight to terrorists who threaten the Iraqi people, the region, and American interests as well.

Fourth, in recent days, we’ve positioned additional U.S. military assets in the region. Because of our increased intelligence resources, we’re developing more information about potential targets associated with ISIL. And going forward, we will be prepared to take targeted and precise military action, if and when we determine that the situation on the ground requires it. If we do, I will consult closely with Congress and leaders in Iraq and in the region.

I want to emphasize, though, that the best and most effective response to a threat like ISIL will ultimately involve partnerships where local forces, like Iraqis, take the lead.

Deja vu…all over again.

Have you ever said or done something that embarrasses you to this very day, if you are unfortunate enough to think about it?

Given Obama’s narcissism, I doubt anything that he has ever said or done bothers him at all.  But, this should…

whitehouse.gov, 10/21/2011

Over the next two months, our troops in Iraq — tens of thousands of them — will pack up their gear and board convoys for the journey home. The last American soldier[s] will cross the border out of Iraq with their heads held high, proud of their success, and knowing that the American people stand united in our support for our troops. That is how America’s military efforts in Iraq will end.

I remember when Obama was announcing that we had left Iraq. If he had been wearing a vest, the buttons would have been popping off, as he spoke. Sho’ ’nuff, “The Lightbringer” had fulfilled his promise to his fellow travelers and withdrawn all American Forces out of Iraq, leaving only the bureaucrats in the American Embassy there, to babysit a fundamentalist Islamic country, made up of Sunnis and Shiites, who had been warring among themselves for centuries, and, were now, trying to figure out how to make things work in a brand spanking new form of government, which they had never tried before: a democracy.

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

Obama got us out alright, blindly following a proposed schedule which President Bush had created years before, not taking into account the actual situation “on the ground”,  “in country”.

As we found out in Vietnam, wars are best prosecuted in the Theater of War by our Military Leaders, NOT IN WASHINGTON, D.C. BY CLUELESS POLITICIANS.

Liberals like the President, trumpet their horns as “the smartest people in the room” over and over again, only to find out, the hard way, that they overestimated their own intelligence.

Remember “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor?”

If this escalates into another Vietnam, we will pay for his vanity with American lives…and that cost will be way too high.

“The best laid plans of mice and men oft-times go awry.”

Especially premature evacuations.

Until He Comes,

KJ