1975 all over again
Time’s Swampland takes a look back at President Obama’s campaign words versus his (non) presidential actions in regards to Iraq;
[On Sept. 12, 2007, in a campaign speech] “We will need to retain some forces in Iraq and the region,” Obama said. “We’ll continue to strike at al-Qaeda in Iraq.”
Obama made the point repeatedly: “In ending the war, we must act with more wisdom than we started it,” he said a month earlier. “That is why my plan would maintain sufficient forces in the region to target al-Qaeda within Iraq.”
And in a February 2008 primary debate, moderator Tim Russert pressed Obama on whether there were any circumstances that would lead him to re-escalate in Iraq: “Do you reserve a right as American president to go back into Iraq, once you have withdrawn?” Russert asked.
“If al-Qaeda is forming a base in Iraq, then we will have to act in a way that secures the American homeland and our interests abroad,” Obama responded.
Six years later, even with al-Qaeda showing alarming strength in Iraq — and across the border in Syria — nobody thinks Obama will “go back into Iraq” anytime soon. As Secretary of State John Kerry put it Sunday: “This is a fight that belongs to the Iraqis.”
Of course, you remember that at the Paris Peace Accords, the Nixon Administration made the same empty promises to the South Vietnamese that if the North ever invaded the South the US would defend our allies. But, as the South was over run with little commie turds, all we showed was our tail feathers.
I am, by no means, advocating that we should invade Iraq for the third time in two decades, but my point is 1) we shouldn’t make promises we have no intention of keeping and 2) you can’t set an arbitrary date for a war to end. The enemy has a say in when a war ends. Yes, I know the withdrawal date in Iraq was set by the Bush Administration, but after they had been harangued by the stupid hippies in Congress for seven years, and two years of the peaceniks trying to defund the troops.
Anyway, the mold is cut, and we have no credibility any more in this war against terrorists. The Afghans should take note.
Category: Terror War
Jonn I was in Jr. High school at the time but IIRC the issue with Vietnam was that Congress – not the president – had essentially hamstrung the president from sending even material aid (which I believe was promised as part of the Paris Peace accords) to the RVN when they were attacked by the NVA in the Spring of ’75. I think Ford even went to Congress and asked them to lift the restriction on arms to the RVN and Congress refused.
So it’s quite a bit different from ’75: Back then we had a president who wanted to help but had his hands tied by congress. Honestly I don’t see anybody in the US, whether in Congress, the media or in the executive branch, calling for us to go back into Iraq.
martinjmpr: generally correct. As Watergate was unfolding, Congress had prohibited US military action in Vietnam via the Case-Church Amendment in June 1973. Although all aid to South Vietnam was not cutoff at that time, Congress shortly began reducing US assistance. (Example: Nixon’s request for aid to South Vietnam for 1975 was originally at least $1 billion, and possibly closer to $1.4 billion – I’ve seen figures ranging from $1 billion to $1.3+ billion, but don’t have the time to figure out which one is correct – but Congress cut the amount requested to $700 million when it authorized the funding.) Shortly after Ford took office, Congress passed a complete ban on US military action in Vietnam along with a phaseout of aid to South Vietnam, culminating in an act requiring a reduction to zero in 1976.
When South Vietnam was invaded in Jan 1975, Ford requested an emergency supplemental appropriation of $300M to assist South Vietnam. Congress refused.
The latter might not have mattered all that much, as South Vietnam fell so fast that a large portion of the original $700M worth of aid authorized for 1975 was never delivered. But the fact remains that Congress stood by and did nothing when asked – and watched an ally fall as a result.
It might have been what the American public wanted, but I still regard that as shameful in the extreme.
So the message is: if the United States declares war on me and if I can survive for more than 5 or 6 years and get my friends in the liberal US press to attack the war, I always win. The US public will always devalue or forget the original objective and lose interest.
I recall April 29, 1975. Many people in my unit had served in RVN and they were angry. I was embarrassed that my country had walked away from our promise. It was a dark day. I left the Army 10 months later.
The problem was with the Iraqi government refusing to sign a SOFA for US soldiers. As stupid as it sounds, they dug their own grave and Obama made the right chioce to not squander another American life in defense of a thankless Iraq.
I thought sofas in that part of the world were called ottomans . . . . (smile)
Seriously – excellent point, 21Zulu. We’d likely still have a few folks there had the Iraqis been willing to agree to a SOFA with the US. Without a SOFA, I tend to agree with you.
@4: That’s true but I don’t recall hearing anybody on either side of the political aisle begging, pleading or imploring Iraq to sign the SOFA, or imploring the Obama administration to negotiate a treaty so we could stay there. It was kind of a mutual agreement to split on the part of all concerned.
Even if US troops were still in Iraq, I have no doubt they’d be hamstrung by insanely restrictive ROE and would spend about 90% of their efforts on “force protection” anyway. Not to mention being the occasional target of “green on blue” attacks or indirect fire/suicide bombers.
We did what we could do in Iraq. We removed the dictator and gave the Iraqis their country back. If they screw it up, well, it’s their doing, not ours.
@4 “…Obama made the right chioce to not squander another American life in defense of a thankless Iraq…”
When will he make the same choice to get us out of a very ungrateful Karzai and Afghanistan. We should be out of there already.
#3 I believe Osama bin Laden made exactly your point in his “fatwa.”
#4 The negotiations on the SOFA agreement hit a stumbling block, as such negotiations will do, and the US walked out and did not go back. The Iraqis were stunned. Obama used a completely normal temporary impasse as an excuse to cut off negotiations prematurely.
Richard – you have just described the plot to “The Mouse That Roared” – in which a little European country (the Duchy of Grand Fenwick, I believe) declared war on the US so that they could a) lose and b) collect war reparations. (It was written soon after the Marshall Plan.) Only problem with their plan…. they won. Became a pretty funny Peter Sellers movie, too.
Until the ROE allows US soldiers to accomplish their mission, it’s just as well that they are removed from the theater. Let the Arabs kill each other.
Hold on there, you guys. You really need to take a closer look at what bodaprez actually said.
‘If al-Qaeda is forming a base in Iraq, then we will have to act in a way that secures the American homeland and our interests abroad.’
Nowhere did he answer a direct question with a direct answer.
Tim Russert: “Do you reserve a right as American president to go back into Iraq, once you have withdrawn?”
That’s quite direct. It only requires a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ for an answer.
And what was the answer? Waffle, waffle, waffle.
There was NO answer. ‘act in a way’? What is that? It certainly is not an answer, but it is definitely a deflection, something we have come to find that bodaprez is REALLY good at. He NEVER said ‘yes, I do’ or ‘no, I don’t’. He avoided giving a definitive answer because someone oculd hold his feet to the fire over it later, if things went sour over there.
This is why people tell you ‘Don’t fart into the wind.’
You know that Obama really, really wanted an agreement because he put Joe Biden in charge of the negotiations.
“Why can’t I just finish my waffle?”
#13 – ROFLMAO!
@7 “When will he make the same choice to get us out of a very ungrateful Karzai and Afghanistan. We should be out of there already.”
It’s happening–we’re currently packing it up out here. Take some time but the more the d-bag Karzai refuses to sign the agreement, the more Americans will split and the quicker we pack. Keep in mind, we’re still getting blasted out here (even thought it isn’t the fighting season) so it has to be done in a way that will not cause excessive casualties. We have enough with the s-vests, VBIEDs, IDF and Green on Blues.
I was active duty in 1975 as we left Vietnam. I was surrounded by NCO’s that had served there and they were very angry at the manner that the chickenshit politicians had just killed so many thousands of the brave Vietnamese that fought alongside the US in that terrible war.
It appears that we are doing the same thing here, the people in the outlands tribal areas that have supported us will now feel the wrath of the Taliban once more because ovomit doesn’t have a smart bone in his body and he is also a chickenshit.
I also believe that we need to get the flock out of there. The ROE’s are killing our troops and the pols in DC have no clue what they are doing…
As a nation we no longer possess the willpower to fight a total war, we only fight wars of limited aggression with small scale strategies designed to eliminate internal NGO organizations and disrupt civilian operations as little as possible.
In Vietnam that strategy cost just under 60,000 American lives and failed to prevent our enemy in the conflict from eventual success, In Iraq 1 we decided to just engage in another limited conflict to maintain a coalition of forces largely funded with American military power to liberate a conquered nation but not to eliminate the conqueror.
That lead to Iraq 2 and Afghanistan, again limited missions to remove internal NGOs, implement regime change and then do nothing to initiate long term change in the region. Consequently we have several thousand more dead Americans and allies who will most likely suffer fatal outcomes after we leave and allow our enemies to regain control of the nations we spend a fortune to occupy and leave largely the same as we found….
At what point do our political and military leaders begin to understand these pretty fucking obvious lessons?
If diplomacy doesn’t work to achieve your long term goals as a nation we had better start re-thinking our use of the military because over the last 50 years we’ve used it and abused it without achieving a single long term strategic goal. There is no actual democratic partner in Vietnam, there will be no actual democratic partners in Iraq or Afghanistan. Southeast Asia has been somewhat stabilized but it was not a result of our military action that achieved that result.
The middle east has not been stabilized nor has aggression been checked in the region.
Time for some of the so-called geniuses in our think tanks and in DC to carefully consider the outcome of using military power for long term strategic national interests. I certainly hope they’ve been paying attention, but I have no reason to believe any of them have learned anything from the last 5 decades of a changing world and it’s attendant political and military dramas.