All the Way with LBJ, or Here We Go With BHO!

OK, I lied!  Even though it was a great idea to move over while my students were blogging, I found that I missed the therapeutic value of ranting.  So I am once again going to start up my left-wing, commie, radical, secular-humanistic, pinko, diatribes.  To my supporters, thanks for sticking around and to my detractors, well. . . if this bothers you so much then start a blog of your own.  I am always up for a battle of wits.

So there I was, feeling sorry for myself about not being able to retire yet, when I decided to distract myself by diving into some light-hearted reading.  My choice of tomes:  General McChrystal's op-ed plea for more soldiers and Marines for Afghanistan.  Yes, I know, my idea of light reading is probably different than yours.  Anyway, I was over come by a Rod Serling-like creepiness that I had somehow witnessed this before.  Since I am not a believer in any multiple-life philosophies, nor was I in a chemically altered state, it seemed to me that I  must have indeed seen this before.  So, off I went to the Library of Congress website and found some interesting position papers written back in 1965.

Do you remember all those brainiacs that David Halberstam tabbed "The Best and Brightest?" Yeah those guys, Robert McNamara, McGeorge Bundy, Dean Rusk, and LBJ's favorite general, William Westmoreland.  Well they were all weighing in with their expert assessments that if only the President, and then the American people, would send more troops to Vietnam, we could break the back of the Vietcong insurgency and their allies the North Vietnamese.  And there were all those Congressional stooges, falling all over themselves to get in front of a TV camera, waxing-on about how no one would know more about appropriate military strategy than the generals who were fighting the war.  Well. . . we all know how that one turned out, don't we?  Fifty-nine thousand dead and missing brave young American men and women, untold losses and suffering inflicted on the people of Vietnam, and within weeks after our hasty departure, Saigon renamed Ho Chi Minh City. Oh yeah, don't forget McNamara's mea culpa, "The Fog of War," where he matter of factly states that he got things wrong!

Turns out that the soldier on the ground and the Pentagon experts are often the worst people to be consulted about overall strategy, especially when it involves nation building, as was the case in Vietnam and is now the case in Afghanistan.  Remember our moist revered president, Abraham Lincoln?  He knew from the outset how to win the Civil War, but he spent over two years following the advice of one incompetent general after another, until he and Secretary of War Stanton found someone who would carry out his plan.  It took tremendous courage for Lincoln to buck the West Point establishment, but he did it and now has a really cool personal monument in Washington, and another in South Dakota.  Then there was President Truman in Korea.  The Military establishment in the Pentagon was pushing for him to adopt the strategy of another legendary military hero, Douglas MacArthur. The original "Big Mac" was calling for a nuclear attack in Manchuria and all out war with China as the way forward in the Korean War.  Hey, that would have worked out really well, World War Three!  Before the mushroom clouds had stopped glowing in northern China, the Soviets would have invaded western Europe and well, more work for the "Greatest Generation!"

So now it is President Obama's turn.  While we are all worrying about the state of our economy and the pending healthcare reform legislation, the president is about to make a series of decisions that may have consequences for our country deep into the 21st century.  Once again, the same old saber-rattling voices are clamoring for more troops as the only viable answer in Afghanistan.  And once again, those very same voices are warning us that only professional soldiers know what is best.  Hmm, it seems to me that when our Constitution was adopted, we created a political system where top level policy and strategy was determined by elected officials, not by economic, social, or military elites.

I have great respect for the opinions of General McChrystal, but they are just that, opinions. Further, they are based on years of training as an Army officer, not a diplomat.  Granted,  President Obama needs to listen carefully to the general's military advice, but he also needs to heed the political advice from those who see the world from a different perspective. On the other hand, I have no respect for those Beltway Warriors, and right wing pundits who are so damned eager to send other people's children off to war.  Perhaps I would feel differently if we still had a lottery-driven draft, and the war hawks actually stood to lose some of the their own children in this war.  But then, if we still had a draft, my guess is that we would be long gone from Afghanistan. . . . Funny, but I do not remember anyone named Bush, Clinton, Chaney, Gore, Reagan, Limbaugh, or Beck in my Basic Training company at Fort Lewis back in '67.  But then, I am getting old, and maybe I just forgot those guys.