Will Iraq Be Obama’s “Vietnam”?

ObamaIraq2“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

 

 

Liberal Democrats Still Using the Race Card…and Black Americans

The Race CardLiberalism has a kind of Tourette’s syndrome these days. It’s just constantly saying the word racism and racist….There’s a kind of intellectual poverty now. Liberalism hasn’t had a new idea since the 1960s, except ObamaCare, and the country doesn’t like it… So what do you do? You say anyone criticizes us is a racist. – George Will

Why have Liberals resumed their egregious use of the “Race Card”?

There are several reasons.

1. Power – President Lyndon Baines Johnson predicted when he launched his “Great Society” in 1964,

I’ll have those n!@#$rs voting Democratic for the next 200 years. 

Their perceived empathy for the plight of Black Americans is but a false front, designed to garner votes, just as their all-consuming push for amnesty for illegal aliens, is. The Liberal Democrats determined long ago, that the way to buy voters’ allegiance, is by “spreading the wealth around” and, as they continue expanding entitlements, i.e., free stuff, their efforts, they hope, will continue to pay off at the polls.

2. Divide and Conquer – By Democrats telling Black Americans that “The Man” is still keeping them down in 2014, and, in millionaire Barack Hussein Obama and the First Wookie…err…Lady Michelle Obama’s case, by telling Black Audiences that they’re “down with the struggle”, they are assuring Black Americans that “they’re on “their side”, while preying upon the apprehensions and avarice of their audience. By purposely causing not only a Racial Divide, but fermenting Class Warfare, as well, the are purposefully dividing Americans by Race and Economic Status, even though the reality is, that yesterday, on Tax Day, “the 1%  paid 30% of America’s Tax Burden, while providing Americans actual jobs.

This strategy of “divide and conquer” has been used by Marxists for years, and the “Progressives” are no exception.

Birds of a feather…

3. Failure of Obama’s Policies – As we approach the Mid-Term Elections in November, Democrats have realized that they HAVE to begin to distance themselves from their fallen messiah, President Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm). Even the Progressives have begun to admit that ol’ ‘Scooter’s Domestic and Foreign Policy have been national embarrassments. Our enemies are all re-arming themselves under Obama’s Foreign Policy, and domestically, Obamacare is circling down the ol’ porcelain receptacle at breakneck speed, while unemployment is high and shows no signs of abating.

Therefore, the Dems are forced to circle the wagons around Obama, while retaining as much distance from his failures as they can, in order to hold on to their phony-baloney jobs. Hrumph!.

Dr. Thomas Sowell, brilliant Economist and Conservative Political Pundit (who just happens to be Black) once wrote,

Some Obama supporters have long regarded any criticism of him as racism. 

…Among people who voted for Barack Obama in 2008, those who are likely to be most disappointed are those who thought that they were voting for a new post-racial era. There was absolutely nothing in Obama’s past to lead to any such expectation, and much to suggest the exact opposite. But the man’s rhetoric and demeanor during the election campaign enabled this and many other illusions to flourish.

Still, it was an honest mistake of the kind that decent people have often made when dealing with people whose agendas are not constrained by decency, but only by what they think they can get away with.

On race, as on other issues, different people have radically different views of Barack Obama, depending on whether they judge him by what he says or by what he does.

As Obama’s own books point out, he has for years cultivated a talent for saying things that people will find congenial.

You want bipartisanship and an end to bickering in Washington? He will say that he wants bipartisanship and an end to bickering in Washington. Then he will shut Republicans out of the decision-making process and respond to their suggestions by reminding them that he won the election. A famous writer– Ring Lardner, I believe– once wrote: “‘Shut up,’ he explained.”

You want a government that is open instead of secretive? He will say that. He will promise to post proposed legislation on the Internet long enough for everyone to read it and know what is in it before there is a vote. In practice, however, he has rushed massive bills through Congress too fast for anybody– even the members of Congress– to know what was in those bills.

Racial issues are more of the same. You want a government where all citizens are treated alike, regardless of race or ethnicity? Obama will say that. Then he will advocate appointing judges with “empathy” for particular segments of the population, such as racial minorities. “Empathy” is just a pretty word for the ugly reality of bias.

Obama’s first nomination of a Supreme Court justice was a classic example of someone with “empathy” for some racial groups, but not others. As a Circuit Court judge, Sonia Sotomayor voted to dismiss a case involving white firefighters who had been denied the promotions for which they qualified, because not enough blacks or Hispanics passed the same test that they did.

A fellow Hispanic judge protested the way the white firefighters’ case was dismissed, rather than adjudicated. Moreover, the Supreme Court not only took the case, it ruled in favor of the firefighters.

Obama’s injecting himself into a local police matter in Massachusetts, despite admitting that he didn’t know the facts, to say that a white policeman was in the wrong in arresting a black professor who was a friend of Obama, was more of the same. So is Obama’s Justice Department overlooking blatant voter intimidation by thugs who happen to be black.

There is not now, nor has there ever been, anything post-racial about Barack Obama, except for the people who voted for him in the mistaken belief that he shared their desire to be post-racial. When he leaves office, especially if it is after one term, he will leave this country more racially polarized than before.

Hopefully, he may also leave the voters wiser, though sadder, after they learn from painful experience that you can’t judge politicians by their rhetoric, or ignore their past because of your hopes for the future. Voters may even wise up to race card fraud.

Dr. Sowell wrote that article in 2010. Since then, and especially after the disastrous start of Obama’s second term as President, we have seen a good portion of America’s population “wise up”.

However, the “47%” and the messiah’s ardent disciples remain as clueless as ever.

If ignorance is bliss, they are some very happy folks.

Until He Comes, 

KJ

The “Great Society”…49 Years Later

questionmark2What is it about the number 47?

Back during the Presidential Race, the “Severely Conservative” Republican Party Legacy Candidate, Mitt Romney, stirred up a hornet’s nest by stating that 47% of Americans were receiving some form of Government Entitlements, such as SNAP, Welfare, etc. I t didn’t really matter that he was absolutely correct. He was considered a rich out-of-touch, uncaring, old white guy, from that moment on. He was positively vilified by President Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm), the rest of the Democratic Party, and their willing minions in the Main Stream Media.

Romney was attempting, rather indelicately, to make the point that, with this American Freedom that we have been blessed with, also comes the burden of responsibility. Romney was trying to illuminate the fact that American is still the Land of  Opportunity, and that “God helps those who help themselves”.

I don’t believe that the Republican Presidential Candidate was attempting to be malicious by calling out the 47%. He was merely trying to paint a verbal picture as to how the sense of entitlement, that is held forcefully by some Americans, and has been facilitated by the Democrats, has spun way out of control, becoming an immeasurable burden on American Taxpayers, and an immense anchor, holding our economy back.

It was that same selfish sense of entitlement that fueled the backlash against “Mittens” by America’s low information voters, who were certainly egged on by their “plantation masters”, the Democratic Party, and their “Straw Bosses”, in the Main Stream Media.

Yesterday, the number 47 came up in the National Media once again, as it was reported that 47% of American Babies are now being born out of wedlock.

To the Wayback Machine, Sherman!

Back  in the 60s, President Lyndon Johnson (whose big hand I once shook, at his ranch, as a little boy, after his presidential term) and the Democrats, brought forth a plan, called “the Great Society”. It was decided, in order to ensure that everyone would have an equal opportunity in America, that Uncle Sugar would step in to fill in the gaps.

Two seminal pieces of legislation were passed.

First, the Civil Rights Bill that JFK promised to sign, before his assassination, was passed into law. This Act banned discrimination based on race and gender in employment and ending segregation in all public facilities.

It also helped to cement in stone, minorities’ loyalty to the Democratic Party, which continues to this day.

The second bill that LBJ signed into law was the sweeping ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY ACT OF 1964. It created the Office of Economic Opportunity whose stated purpose was to attack the roots of American poverty. A Job Corps was then established to provide vocational training.

A preschool program designed to help disadvantaged students arrive at kindergarten ready to learn, named HEADSTART, was then established. Then came VOLUNTEERS IN SERVICE TO AMERICA (VISTA), which was set up as a domestic Peace Corps. Schools in impoverished American regions would now receive volunteer teaching attention. Federal funds were sent to struggling communities to attack unemployment and illiteracy.

What Johnson told Americans, as he campaigned in 1964, was that the establishment of this “Great Society” was going to eliminate the problems of America’s poor.

It had the opposite effect

The Great Society created a dependent class, which, instead of diminishing as it’s members joined the workforce, increased from generation to generation, relying on the federal government to provide their every need.

Uncle Sugar became Mother, Father, Preacher, and Doctor to generations of Americans. This “plantation mentality” continues to this day.

I know. I spent from January 2011 – June 2012 working in our county’s WIN Job Center.

While at this Employment Office, I was able to observe folks down on their luck, struggling to find work and survive in this economy.

I also saw American families whose existence living on the Government Dole, had become generational.

It is these people whom Obama and the Democrats continue to hypnotize into believing that Uncle Sugar loves them, and is their only solution to surviving a stifling existence.

They are so, so wrong.

The strength and vitality of America does not come from the benevolence of a Nanny-state Federal Government.

As the greatest American President of our lifetime, Ronald Reagan said:

The nine words you never want to hear are:  I’m from the Government and I’m here to help.

Being enslaved to the Government Dole steals one’s ambition.  It takes away any impetus or desire to create a better life for yourself and your family, to challenge yourself to pick yourself up by your bootstraps and pursue the American Dream.  It makes you reliant on a politically-motivated spider’s web full of government bureaucrats who view you and your family as job security.

I watched American citizens trapped in this web of government bureaucracy,  so numbed of any initiative that they once had, that they seemed offended that they actually had to prove that they inquired about three jobs that week in order to keep their “benefits”.  Others seemed puzzled that they had to search through the state data base and pick out a job that they wanted to talk to an interviewer about receiving a referral to, and weren’t just simply handed a job when they walked through the door.

Now, you tell me that 47% of Americans of child-bearing age, don’t have enough self-control, self-esteem, and moral turpitude to actually get married before they bring an innocent life into this world?

I’m not a bit surprised.

Welcome to the Democrats’ “Great Society”.

Until He Comes,

KJ