Patrick J. Buchanan: Can We Win An Insurgents’ War?
The U.S. Army is not going to be defeated in Iraq, said one U.S. general, and he added pointedly: If we lose this war, we will lose it here in the United States. Correct.
The only war America ever “lost” was lost in the United States.
When Nixon pulled U.S. forces out of Vietnam in early 1973, the Viet Cong had been crushed, the North Vietnamese defeated, every provincial capital was in Saigon’s hands.
Yet we lost Vietnam in 1975, when Hanoi, rearmed by Moscow, invaded with a dozen divisions, while Saigon, cut off by Congress, was forced to fight what General Giap called “a poor man’s war.”
Books have been written about why we did what we did in 1974 and 1975. The truth is the United States walked away from South Vietnam when our enemy was flat on his back. As Nixon was bedeviled by Watergate, a Democratic Congress to whom power had passed decided South Vietnam was no longer worth saving.
In Iraq, we have fought three years and the cost in war dead is not 5 percent of the 58,000 we lost in Vietnam. Yet America’s will to see this war through seems less than it was in Vietnam in November 1968.
When Nixon told the nation North Vietnam could not defeat the United States—“only Americans can do that”—and he called on the “Great Silent Majority” to stand with him for “peace with honor,” the country did—through three more years of war and 30,000 more dead.
But the America of 2006 would never accept three more years of 10,000 more dead every year for success in Iraq. Long before, the nation would force the administration to pull out. And this raises a relevant question. Are we the people and nation we used to be?
For if one compares the sacrifices of previous wars with the present cost in blood and treasure of Iraq, the disparities are startling.
The war against Mussolini’s Italy, Hitler’s Germany, and Hirohito’s Japan cost 400,000 U.S. dead in four years. At its height, a third of the GDP was allocated for the war. At its end, 12 million Americans were under arms.
In Korea, we lost 33,000 in three years. During the Eisenhower era, we spent 9 percent of GDP on defense and maintained a draft. Reagan kept defense spending at 6 percent of GDP and broke the Soviet Empire.
Today, we spend 4 percent on defense, 1 percent on Iraq, our casualties are a tiny fraction of what we took in World War II, Korea, or Vietnam. Yet America wants out and the enemy knows it. What does this tell us?
We are a changed people and nation from who and what we were in 1960. And we live in a changed world. ...
Read entire article at American Conservative
The only war America ever “lost” was lost in the United States.
When Nixon pulled U.S. forces out of Vietnam in early 1973, the Viet Cong had been crushed, the North Vietnamese defeated, every provincial capital was in Saigon’s hands.
Yet we lost Vietnam in 1975, when Hanoi, rearmed by Moscow, invaded with a dozen divisions, while Saigon, cut off by Congress, was forced to fight what General Giap called “a poor man’s war.”
Books have been written about why we did what we did in 1974 and 1975. The truth is the United States walked away from South Vietnam when our enemy was flat on his back. As Nixon was bedeviled by Watergate, a Democratic Congress to whom power had passed decided South Vietnam was no longer worth saving.
In Iraq, we have fought three years and the cost in war dead is not 5 percent of the 58,000 we lost in Vietnam. Yet America’s will to see this war through seems less than it was in Vietnam in November 1968.
When Nixon told the nation North Vietnam could not defeat the United States—“only Americans can do that”—and he called on the “Great Silent Majority” to stand with him for “peace with honor,” the country did—through three more years of war and 30,000 more dead.
But the America of 2006 would never accept three more years of 10,000 more dead every year for success in Iraq. Long before, the nation would force the administration to pull out. And this raises a relevant question. Are we the people and nation we used to be?
For if one compares the sacrifices of previous wars with the present cost in blood and treasure of Iraq, the disparities are startling.
The war against Mussolini’s Italy, Hitler’s Germany, and Hirohito’s Japan cost 400,000 U.S. dead in four years. At its height, a third of the GDP was allocated for the war. At its end, 12 million Americans were under arms.
In Korea, we lost 33,000 in three years. During the Eisenhower era, we spent 9 percent of GDP on defense and maintained a draft. Reagan kept defense spending at 6 percent of GDP and broke the Soviet Empire.
Today, we spend 4 percent on defense, 1 percent on Iraq, our casualties are a tiny fraction of what we took in World War II, Korea, or Vietnam. Yet America wants out and the enemy knows it. What does this tell us?
We are a changed people and nation from who and what we were in 1960. And we live in a changed world. ...