There was an article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, The Guns of August 1990 , where Fouad Ajami argues that, “The last 20 years would have been very different had the American forces taken that open road to Baghdad the first time around.” We can be fairly sure that the decision to stop short of victory was made by President George H.W. Bush. Whether he was influenced by General Powell I do not know but I believe General Norman Schwarzkopf could have brought the war to a more satisfying conclusion with minimal casualties. Saddam Hussein would have been removed from the middle east equation and maybe this change would have allowed us to avoid the two attacks on the World Trade Center. Its something to speculate about.
Didn’t we snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in Vietnam as well? We could argue this all day long but I am convinced that militarily the war was essentially won when the Tet Offensive failed. Why the media chose to portray it otherwise is pretty strong evidence that our media has had an agenda for a long time. It probably doesn't matter since our civilian leadership had already removed victory as an option early in the game. We learned quick enough that the enemy was completely committed to victory.
Even though Truman was a committed New Dealer I still liked him. He was both feisty and I believe honest. However I totally disagree with his decision to not pursue total victory in Korea. Even if Truman was justified in relieving MacArthur of his command in Korea it does not in any way make MacArthur’s belief in total victory any less right. We would not be dealing with North Korea now if we had gotten it right back then. Moreover the people of North Korea would not have spent the past sixty years in misery.
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3 comments:
I so totally agree with you. When we (the military) are called to fight, we have to fight on two fronts. One is the main war, and the other is the political war. More often than not, our hands are tied by the Politicians and therefore any chance of victory is gone. I was there in 90. We could see Bagdad, but were told to stop where we were.
Robert~
btw, I am back in the US now.
I'm glad you made it back safe and I hope healthy. I thank you for your service to your country. You do more to defend the Constitution than the weasels in Washington who make decisions not on what is good for the country but for what they think will be good for their re-election.
Thanks Physical. It's great to be back.
Robert~
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