War & Pizza Hut: Volume 2

After 50 years, this self absorbed teeth gnashing pity party has to stop if the western world has any hope of dealing with not only cockroaches like Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong Il but more importantly offering a viable economic and political alternative to one where Facebook is banned and IP blocked.
This obsession with “losing” for the first time totally misses the point. Vietnam wasn’t America’s first substantive loss since America effectively “lost” the Korean War by making the same short sighted and spineless non-choices at the expense of almost as many of America’s best and bravest.
After 250 years of the same lesson, again and again and again, it is clear the record breaking $20,000 Americans (sorry, you write like so many of my smart friends who went to school in Boston talk) spend per pupil in public education each year yields less and less intellectual return with each crop. 1) Fight the “war” to win no matter the cost or don’t fight. 2) Know that 80% of victory is mental, especially how your enemies perceive you and your determination to win at all costs. 3) If you can’t afford to win financially or politically, get someone else to do the dirty work. Whether it’s Sun Tzu, the SS fighting block by block in Stalingrad or Marines in Fallujah, it’s the same thing.
Americans ALWAYS mess up their Vietnam analysis. The truth is, just like in Iraq and Afghanistan, 99% of what Americans do and the money they spend is a total waste and it was just a matter of time before the country spent itself into retreat.
Should have fully pursued lesson #3 above. Most folks don’t know that the best allied fighting units in Vietnam were hired mercenaries. For $1 billion (a massive fortune 50 years ago and the blood money needed for our economic revival), over 300,000 Koreans fought in Vietnam over a decade. Ask any NVA or VC commander whether they would have preferred fighting your true American hero, John Kerry, or the Blue Dragons. Which battle was the most humiliating lopsided pitched battle for the Communists? More than getting their pathetic assess handed to them, Tra Binh Dong scorched in the minds of every relevant Communist commander that Korean units were to be avoided at all costs for the rest of the war. Game over. By contrast, What was America’s example? You guys allowed poison peddlers like Walter Cronkite to turn turn a major military disaster for the NVA and huge moral affront (the Tet Offensive) into a turning point against the American military. The point, American would have been better off paying Korea $5 billion and outsourcing the whole damn thing with clear deliverables. LOL but probably true.
Despots and the next superpowers (often one in the same) know America’s narcissistic self indulgence and self righteous notion that it is morally better than the rest of us makes America it’s own greatest enemy and that it will eventually rear its head in any matter of substance to snatch defeat out the mouth of victory (however you want to define it). Americans are getting really good at it! Remember the Battle of Fallujah?
So stop with the W whining. It is getting old. At least he had some guts. His mistake wasn’t going to war. His mistake, like his “read my lips” father’s, was blinking when it mattered the most. Pick Cheny/Rummy or pick Powell you can’t split the difference. And stop trying to sell John Kerry. He just doesn’t matter and sorry, when I look at what real purple heart recipients look like (try shaking the hand of John McCain or Bob Dole), his “record of service” looks like so many of the exaggerated resumes I see from my fellow Ivy League colleagues.
The world’s despots and has-been nations don’t dislike America (most average men and women in the nations these people oppress actually like you) because of W, Iraq or Afghanistan. America has never been really innocent (even your moral hero Lincoln was willing to leaves the slaves in their chains to avoid the Civil war and Generals Grant and Sherman are to this day hated by many in your South for their wartime atrocities) but you guys are the only ones hung up about that which just provides more fodder for the cockroaches to feed upon. It’s the hypocrisy that bugs us, dude (although we love all the free stuff and Avatar!).
Throughout history wars have always been fought for national interests but necessarily sold as “righteous” or for some more noble cause. Vietnam was no different and America is no different so let’s move on for everyone’s sake as there are much bigger stakes to worry about.