Mike Smith gets history wrong
Mike Smith, former Vermont Secretary of Administration, had an editorial published in yesterday's Barre-Montpelier Times Argus.
This commentary is so unfocused it's hard to know where to begin.
"The key here is the objective the president establishes and his commitment to stick to that objective through both the good and the inevitably bad times. Without an obtainable objective and an unwavering commitment to that objective then probably the best course of action is to bring our troops home from Afghanistan, now."
The problem is that the Bush administration didn't clearly define the desired end state before entering Afghanistan and Iraq. For years the only assessments we could count on was that things were going great, and if we gave them just six months more, things would be going REALLY great.
The Iraq and Afghanistan wars have become perfect examples of circular logic. When times are goods we can't leave because they might go bad again. When times are bad we have to stay so we can make them good again. All we know for sure is that we're staying because we can't leave and we're not leaving because we're staying.
It's not enough to simply say "win" or "total victory." The military needs to know what objectives need to be met so that they'll recognize success when they've attained it.
Think of the Civil War. At its lowest ebb, when there were members of the Union who desired a negotiated peace with the Confederacy, Lincoln successfully rebuffed them because everyone had known from the beginning that his only condition for peace was that the Confederacy lay down its arms -- after that everything else was subject to negotiation. The Confederates wouldn't stop fighting in 1863 and 1864, so Lincoln successfully reminded his constituents of the precondition that had been set at the beginning.
Or think of World War II. When some individuals suggested negotiated peace with Germany, Japan and Italy, the Allies successfully rejected that argument because everyone had known from the start of the fighting that the strategic objective to be attained was the UNCONDITIONAL surrender of the Axis powers.
The failure in Vietnam wasn't the military's, whose goals were to stop the North Vietnamese Army from overrunning South Vietnam and to prevent the expansion of the Viet Cong in South Vietnam. The problem was that the political objective -- creating a stable and credible South Vietnamese government allied with the US -- was unachievable. NO ONE believed the South Vietnamese government was capable or honest. If we wanted it, our military could still be in Vietnam achieving its military objectives against the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army. Because the political objective was not realistic, the military's success didn't matter.
"In fact, they crippled Democrat Hubert Humphrey's presidential bid with their anti-war protests at the 1968 convention."
That's ridiculous. Humphrey's problem was that he wasn't STRONG ENOUGH in his condemnation of the Vietnam war. In the closing days of that campaign, when he finally, slightly, broke with Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam policy, Humphrey staged an amazing comeback in opinion polls. In fact, he barely lost to Richard Nixon. Since Humphrey's momentum was generated by his anti-Vietnam stance, it seems obvious that if he'd been stronger in this regard, he'd have become president.
"The same can't be said of today's fickle protesters, where morality is absent and politics is all-consuming."
How does Mike Smith figure that today's anti-war protesters have no morals and are interested only in politics? Many of these individuals have been consistent in their opposition, especially to the Iraq war. They've made clear why -- they're protesting a war of discretion against a country that posed no threat to the United States. They're protesting Bush's intentional, lying, conflation of Saddam Hussein with the 9-11 attacks. They're protesting the torture and rendition and detention policies of the Bush administration, not as a question of whether those tactics are successful, but as a question of right and wrong -- the very definition of morality. Contrast that with the "tea party" protesters, who had no problem with Bush's illegal detentions and searches, his torture policy, his data collection that amounts to spying on Americans -- fascism. But they think guaranteed access to health care is a dictaorial plot by the Obama administration. Pardon me if I conclude that these "tea party" protesters are hypocritical and amoral.
I've spent 27 years in uniform (and counting). I did my time in Iraq, a tour for which I volunteered. From my perspective as a soldier and a student of history, Mike Smith is completely off the mark.
This commentary is so unfocused it's hard to know where to begin.
"The key here is the objective the president establishes and his commitment to stick to that objective through both the good and the inevitably bad times. Without an obtainable objective and an unwavering commitment to that objective then probably the best course of action is to bring our troops home from Afghanistan, now."
The problem is that the Bush administration didn't clearly define the desired end state before entering Afghanistan and Iraq. For years the only assessments we could count on was that things were going great, and if we gave them just six months more, things would be going REALLY great.
The Iraq and Afghanistan wars have become perfect examples of circular logic. When times are goods we can't leave because they might go bad again. When times are bad we have to stay so we can make them good again. All we know for sure is that we're staying because we can't leave and we're not leaving because we're staying.
It's not enough to simply say "win" or "total victory." The military needs to know what objectives need to be met so that they'll recognize success when they've attained it.
Think of the Civil War. At its lowest ebb, when there were members of the Union who desired a negotiated peace with the Confederacy, Lincoln successfully rebuffed them because everyone had known from the beginning that his only condition for peace was that the Confederacy lay down its arms -- after that everything else was subject to negotiation. The Confederates wouldn't stop fighting in 1863 and 1864, so Lincoln successfully reminded his constituents of the precondition that had been set at the beginning.
Or think of World War II. When some individuals suggested negotiated peace with Germany, Japan and Italy, the Allies successfully rejected that argument because everyone had known from the start of the fighting that the strategic objective to be attained was the UNCONDITIONAL surrender of the Axis powers.
The failure in Vietnam wasn't the military's, whose goals were to stop the North Vietnamese Army from overrunning South Vietnam and to prevent the expansion of the Viet Cong in South Vietnam. The problem was that the political objective -- creating a stable and credible South Vietnamese government allied with the US -- was unachievable. NO ONE believed the South Vietnamese government was capable or honest. If we wanted it, our military could still be in Vietnam achieving its military objectives against the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army. Because the political objective was not realistic, the military's success didn't matter.
"In fact, they crippled Democrat Hubert Humphrey's presidential bid with their anti-war protests at the 1968 convention."
That's ridiculous. Humphrey's problem was that he wasn't STRONG ENOUGH in his condemnation of the Vietnam war. In the closing days of that campaign, when he finally, slightly, broke with Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam policy, Humphrey staged an amazing comeback in opinion polls. In fact, he barely lost to Richard Nixon. Since Humphrey's momentum was generated by his anti-Vietnam stance, it seems obvious that if he'd been stronger in this regard, he'd have become president.
"The same can't be said of today's fickle protesters, where morality is absent and politics is all-consuming."
How does Mike Smith figure that today's anti-war protesters have no morals and are interested only in politics? Many of these individuals have been consistent in their opposition, especially to the Iraq war. They've made clear why -- they're protesting a war of discretion against a country that posed no threat to the United States. They're protesting Bush's intentional, lying, conflation of Saddam Hussein with the 9-11 attacks. They're protesting the torture and rendition and detention policies of the Bush administration, not as a question of whether those tactics are successful, but as a question of right and wrong -- the very definition of morality. Contrast that with the "tea party" protesters, who had no problem with Bush's illegal detentions and searches, his torture policy, his data collection that amounts to spying on Americans -- fascism. But they think guaranteed access to health care is a dictaorial plot by the Obama administration. Pardon me if I conclude that these "tea party" protesters are hypocritical and amoral.
I've spent 27 years in uniform (and counting). I did my time in Iraq, a tour for which I volunteered. From my perspective as a soldier and a student of history, Mike Smith is completely off the mark.
posted by 1st Republic 14th Star at 8:48 PM
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