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Guest
Clinton-Obama on Iraq: The silence is deafening
By Mark Alexander
Pondering the '08 presidential candidates this week, with the
primaries finally underway, I find that recent changes in the Democrat
strategy are most telling.
Whatever happened to the Left's relentless protests about Operation
Iraqi Freedom--you know, the quagmire in Mesopotamia? Hillary Clinton
and Barack Obama, who never let a media minute pass a few months back
without condemning OIF, have been all but silent on the conflict.
Why, it's almost as if their traitorous use of OIF sound bites for
campaign cannon fodder has decreased as the success rate of our
military campaign in the region has increased.
Could it be?
Indeed, the inverse relationship between the frequency of the Left's
objections to OIF, and our successes in the region, is painfully
clear. As our combat forces have proven the value of General David
Petraeus's counterinsurgency strategy, "the surge," they have also
reduced the Democrats' political objections to campaign-trail rubble.
Of course, when pressed for answers on OIF, as they were at last
week's debates in New Hampshire, Clinton and Obama provide answers
that will keep linguists and contortionists busy for years.
Clinton, who infamously complained to General Petraeus that only a
"willing suspension of disbelief" would lead one to conclude the surge
was working, says now that her assessment is still right and that that
there is no justification that our troops "should remain beyond, you
know, today."
Obama, for his part, repeated the tired Demo mantra that "we have not
made ourselves safer as a consequence" of OIF--which explains all the
terrorist attacks on our soil since 9/11. He then insisted that the
real reason for any success in Iraq is that "the Democrats were
elected in 2006" --no doubt because the specter of Speaker Nancy Pelosi
and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sent chills up and down the
spines of all those wonkish Sunni insurgents.
Making sure they don't alienate their jihadi constituency in the U.S.
or abroad, neither Clinton nor Obama dared refer to our adversary in
terms of "Islam," even though moderator Charles Gibson posited his
questions in reference to "Islamic radicals."
Of course the Republican candidates made clear they understood who the
enemy is.
John McCain was clear that "the transcendent challenge of the 21st
century is radical Islamic extremists." Mike Huckabee said the threat
we face is "an Islamic problem... a jihadist problem... an
Islamofascism problem." Mitt Romney said, "[T]he philosophy of radical
jihadism says, 'We want to kill'." Fred Thompson insisted, "We are in
a global war with radical Islam. They declared war on us a long, long
time ago. We took note, really, for the first time on September 11,
2001."
While the cardinal duties of the President, as defined by our
Constitution, pertain to the security of the nation, it would seem
that the Democrats are not even willing to define our enemy, much less
acknowledge that the jihadi WMD threat is a clear and present danger.
Instead, since the first shots were fired to secure freedom in
Afghanistan and Iraq (keeping the battlefront on their turf rather
than ours), Clinton and Obama have condemned our Armed Forces
operations, opting to invoke the Vietnam model: Use their political
soapbox and Leftmedia sympathies to rally their political base.
However the effect of their actions is no different from what it was
in Vietnam: Their political gambit greatly emboldens our enemy, and
costs American lives.
On that subject, we recently quoted a reputable columnist who, along
with some other national commentators, made reference to the
consequences of Leftmedia and "anti-war" political campaigns when our
troops were in Vietnam. He attributed this quote to North Vietnamese
General Vo Nguyen Giap: "We were elated to notice your media was
definitely helping us. They were causing more disruption in America
than we could in the battlefields. We were ready to surrender after
Tet. You had won!"
On further review, we determined there is not sufficient documentation
for that attribution. However, Giap did have this to say in a 1989
interview with CBS: "We paid a high price [during the Tet offensive]
but so did you [Americans]... not only in lives and materiel. Do not
forget the war was brought into the living rooms of the American
people.... The most important result of the Tet offensive was it made
you de-escalate the bombing, and it brought you to the negotiation
table. It was, therefore, a victory... The war was fought on many
fronts. At that time the most important one was American public
opinion."
More to the point, in a 1995 interview with The Wall Street Journal,
Bui Tin, a communist contemporary of Giap and Ho Chi Minh, who was
serving as an NVA colonel assigned to the general staff at the time
Saigon fell, had this to say about the Leftmedia and Soviet puppets
like "Hanoi" Jane Fonda and John Kerry: "[They were] essential to our
strategy. Support of the war from our rear was completely secure while
the American rear was vulnerable. Every day our leadership would
listen to world news over the radio to follow the growth of the
American antiwar movement. Visits to Hanoi by people like Jane Fonda,
and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us
confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield
reverses."
Bui stated further, "Those people represented the conscience of
America. The conscience of America was part of its war-making
capability, and we were turning that power in our favor. America lost
because of its democracy; through dissent and protest it lost the
ability to mobilize a will to win."
Most notably, Bui observed, that the 1968 Tet Offensive was "to weaken
American resolve during a presidential-election year. We had the
impression that American commanders had their hands tied by political
factors. Your generals could never deploy a maximum force for greatest
military effect."
After the war, Bui Tin served as Vice Chief Editor for the People's
Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Vietnam.
However, he became disillusioned with the Communist regime and, in
1990, immigrated to Europe as a dissident.
So, is the Left's Dezinformatsia model during Vietnam equally
effective at undermining success in Iraq? Are Clinton, Obama and their
Leftmedia minions "essential" to the jihadist strategy, "weakening
American resolve during a presidential-election year" and emboldening
our enemy?
Consider this excerpt from a Patriot dispatch last year: "At a recent
national-security briefing, the most senior presenter, a vice admiral,
discussed the topic 'Media as Terrain' --how our adversaries use the
media as a battleground. He used this declassified quote to make his
point: 'I say to you: that we are in a battle, and that more than half
of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media.' That
quote is from an intercepted and authenticated communiqu
By Mark Alexander
Pondering the '08 presidential candidates this week, with the
primaries finally underway, I find that recent changes in the Democrat
strategy are most telling.
Whatever happened to the Left's relentless protests about Operation
Iraqi Freedom--you know, the quagmire in Mesopotamia? Hillary Clinton
and Barack Obama, who never let a media minute pass a few months back
without condemning OIF, have been all but silent on the conflict.
Why, it's almost as if their traitorous use of OIF sound bites for
campaign cannon fodder has decreased as the success rate of our
military campaign in the region has increased.
Could it be?
Indeed, the inverse relationship between the frequency of the Left's
objections to OIF, and our successes in the region, is painfully
clear. As our combat forces have proven the value of General David
Petraeus's counterinsurgency strategy, "the surge," they have also
reduced the Democrats' political objections to campaign-trail rubble.
Of course, when pressed for answers on OIF, as they were at last
week's debates in New Hampshire, Clinton and Obama provide answers
that will keep linguists and contortionists busy for years.
Clinton, who infamously complained to General Petraeus that only a
"willing suspension of disbelief" would lead one to conclude the surge
was working, says now that her assessment is still right and that that
there is no justification that our troops "should remain beyond, you
know, today."
Obama, for his part, repeated the tired Demo mantra that "we have not
made ourselves safer as a consequence" of OIF--which explains all the
terrorist attacks on our soil since 9/11. He then insisted that the
real reason for any success in Iraq is that "the Democrats were
elected in 2006" --no doubt because the specter of Speaker Nancy Pelosi
and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sent chills up and down the
spines of all those wonkish Sunni insurgents.
Making sure they don't alienate their jihadi constituency in the U.S.
or abroad, neither Clinton nor Obama dared refer to our adversary in
terms of "Islam," even though moderator Charles Gibson posited his
questions in reference to "Islamic radicals."
Of course the Republican candidates made clear they understood who the
enemy is.
John McCain was clear that "the transcendent challenge of the 21st
century is radical Islamic extremists." Mike Huckabee said the threat
we face is "an Islamic problem... a jihadist problem... an
Islamofascism problem." Mitt Romney said, "[T]he philosophy of radical
jihadism says, 'We want to kill'." Fred Thompson insisted, "We are in
a global war with radical Islam. They declared war on us a long, long
time ago. We took note, really, for the first time on September 11,
2001."
While the cardinal duties of the President, as defined by our
Constitution, pertain to the security of the nation, it would seem
that the Democrats are not even willing to define our enemy, much less
acknowledge that the jihadi WMD threat is a clear and present danger.
Instead, since the first shots were fired to secure freedom in
Afghanistan and Iraq (keeping the battlefront on their turf rather
than ours), Clinton and Obama have condemned our Armed Forces
operations, opting to invoke the Vietnam model: Use their political
soapbox and Leftmedia sympathies to rally their political base.
However the effect of their actions is no different from what it was
in Vietnam: Their political gambit greatly emboldens our enemy, and
costs American lives.
On that subject, we recently quoted a reputable columnist who, along
with some other national commentators, made reference to the
consequences of Leftmedia and "anti-war" political campaigns when our
troops were in Vietnam. He attributed this quote to North Vietnamese
General Vo Nguyen Giap: "We were elated to notice your media was
definitely helping us. They were causing more disruption in America
than we could in the battlefields. We were ready to surrender after
Tet. You had won!"
On further review, we determined there is not sufficient documentation
for that attribution. However, Giap did have this to say in a 1989
interview with CBS: "We paid a high price [during the Tet offensive]
but so did you [Americans]... not only in lives and materiel. Do not
forget the war was brought into the living rooms of the American
people.... The most important result of the Tet offensive was it made
you de-escalate the bombing, and it brought you to the negotiation
table. It was, therefore, a victory... The war was fought on many
fronts. At that time the most important one was American public
opinion."
More to the point, in a 1995 interview with The Wall Street Journal,
Bui Tin, a communist contemporary of Giap and Ho Chi Minh, who was
serving as an NVA colonel assigned to the general staff at the time
Saigon fell, had this to say about the Leftmedia and Soviet puppets
like "Hanoi" Jane Fonda and John Kerry: "[They were] essential to our
strategy. Support of the war from our rear was completely secure while
the American rear was vulnerable. Every day our leadership would
listen to world news over the radio to follow the growth of the
American antiwar movement. Visits to Hanoi by people like Jane Fonda,
and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us
confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield
reverses."
Bui stated further, "Those people represented the conscience of
America. The conscience of America was part of its war-making
capability, and we were turning that power in our favor. America lost
because of its democracy; through dissent and protest it lost the
ability to mobilize a will to win."
Most notably, Bui observed, that the 1968 Tet Offensive was "to weaken
American resolve during a presidential-election year. We had the
impression that American commanders had their hands tied by political
factors. Your generals could never deploy a maximum force for greatest
military effect."
After the war, Bui Tin served as Vice Chief Editor for the People's
Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Vietnam.
However, he became disillusioned with the Communist regime and, in
1990, immigrated to Europe as a dissident.
So, is the Left's Dezinformatsia model during Vietnam equally
effective at undermining success in Iraq? Are Clinton, Obama and their
Leftmedia minions "essential" to the jihadist strategy, "weakening
American resolve during a presidential-election year" and emboldening
our enemy?
Consider this excerpt from a Patriot dispatch last year: "At a recent
national-security briefing, the most senior presenter, a vice admiral,
discussed the topic 'Media as Terrain' --how our adversaries use the
media as a battleground. He used this declassified quote to make his
point: 'I say to you: that we are in a battle, and that more than half
of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media.' That
quote is from an intercepted and authenticated communiqu