How to Lose A War

Since 11-22-05

On 22 November 2005, BGEN Bob Clements, USAF, ret wrote:

Subj: How To Lose A War
Date: 11/22/2005 5:54:13 AM Eastern Standard Time
From: p38bob@deepwell.com Sent from the Internet (Details)

I wish we could discuss this terribly important issue without getting involved in political parties as the focus for choosing sides in the discussion. The House debate, and the conduct of both parties, the other night was one of the most disgusting sessions I have ever witnessed in my 82 years aboard this vessel called earth.....The United States lost some dignity in the fiasco reminiscent of some bar room shouting match.. I have to say I have absolutely no regard for Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco and after that brawl the other night, I find her even more disgusting.

I went to school in San Francisco at UCSF medical Center. In those days you could walk the whole length of Golden Gate Park and never even think about being mugged.

Try it now.

City by the Golden Gate????

Gets pretty disgusting when you see men kissing on street corners. But if you want to proudly get elected to office in San Francisco, you champion that. Ask Feinstein and Pelosi both, who by the way, were immigrants to the city.

I left my heart in San Francisco..but not the one that exists today....

I am sorry about straying from healthcare, which was my main reason for starting this e-mail net..but..it really is about the healthcare of thousands of young men and women who will return after fighting this war . I don't want to see them have to struggle for the promised healthcare for themselves and their families as we have had to do. I don't want to see them have to cope with people such as Cindy Williams from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal carping over the cost of Congress' actions in passing TRICARE For Life and repealing a 1986 law that cut lifetime retired pay by 22% for post-1986 service entrants (both initiatives were supported by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to address growing retention problems at the time) She got a PhD in math from UCLA(Irvine).

She worked for MITRE Corp. out of Bedford, MA. and Rand in CA. She has never served in the military and has NO idea of what it is to face our type of hardships or duck from shots fired in anger...yet...during the Clinton years, she garnered cushy jobs in DOD and the Congressional Budget Office where she showed in spades, her bias against the military.

See item three (3) at the below URL http://www.moaa.org/lac/lac_issues_news/lac_update/lac_update_051116.htm

The President of MIT, Dr. Susan Hockfield, is slated to receive the Amelia Earhart Award from the Women's Union on Monday, Nov. 21 (today), at a luncheon at the Boston Marriott Copley Place.

The Amelia Earhart Award was established in 1983 by the Women's Union to recognize women who continue Earhart's pioneering spirit.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2005/earhart-1116.html

Cindy Williams works for this lady who is supposed to be representative of Earhart's pioneering spirit. Maybe President Hockfield would like to hear your remarks about Cindy Williams who trashes the men and women of the Armed Forces of The United States by saying they are overpaid and do not deserve Tricare for Life as being far too expensive for the people who make it possible for the United States of America to exist..

In addition to Dr Williams E-mail address at cindywil@MIT.EDU I would suggest all of you join in forwarding your comments about the Cindy Williams personage to both of the following addresses. The President of MIT, Dr. Susan Hockfield... Email _hockfield@mit.edu_ (mailto:hockfield@mit.edu ) .

Another Email address of significance is the MIT News people....who put out all the MIT propaganda. _newsoffice@mit.edu_ 

Back to the war... for military retirees and the active duty folks chk6 bob

On Mon, 21 Nov 2005 07:24:02 -0800, MG Hank Stelling USAF ret submitted:

New York Post November 21, 2005

How To Lose A War

By Ralph Peters

QUIT. It's that simple. There are plenty of more complex ways to lose a war, but none as reliable as just giving up.

Increasingly, quitting looks like the new American Way of War. No matter how great your team, you can't win the game if you walk off the field at half-time. That's precisely what the Democratic Party wants America to do in Iraq. Forget the fact that we've made remarkable progress under daunting conditions: The Dems are looking to throw the game just to embarrass the Bush administration.

Forget about the consequences. Disregard the immediate encouragement to the terrorists and insurgents to keep killing every American soldier they can. Ignore what would happen in Iraq — and the region — if we bail out. And don't mention how a U.S. surrender would turn al Qaeda into an Islamic superpower, the champ who knocked out Uncle Sam in the third round.

Forget about our dead soldiers, whose sacrifice is nothing but a political club for Democrats to wave in front of the media. After all, one way to create the kind of disaffection in the ranks that the Dems' leaders yearn to see is to tell our troops on the battlefield that they're risking their lives for nothing, we're throwing the game.

Forget that our combat veterans are re-enlisting at remarkable rates — knowing they'll have to leave their families and go back to war again. Ignore the progress on the ground, the squeezing of the insurgency's last strongholds into the badlands on the Syrian border. Blow off the successive Iraqi elections and the astonishing cooperation we've seen between age-old enemies as they struggle to form a decent government.

Just set a time-table for our troops to come home and show the world that America is an unreliable ally with no stomach for a fight, no matter the stakes involved. Tell the world that deserting the South Vietnamese and fleeing from Somalia weren't anomalies — that's what Americans do.

While we're at it, let's just print up recruiting posters for the terrorists, informing the youth of the Middle East that Americans are cowards who can be attacked with impunity.

Whatever you do, don't talk about any possible consequences. Focus on the moment — and the next round of U.S. elections. Just make political points. After all, those dead American soldiers and Marines don't matter — they didn't go to Ivy League schools. (Besides, most would've voted Republican had they lived.)

America's security? Hah! As long as the upcoming elections show Democratic gains, let the terrorist threat explode. So what if hundreds of thousands of Middle Easterners might die in a regional war? So what if violent fundamentalism gets a shot of steroids? So what if we make Abu Musab al-Zarqawi the most successful Arab of the past 500 years?

For God's sake, don't talk about democracy in the Middle East. After all, democracy wasn't much fun for the Dems in 2000 or 2004. Why support it overseas, when it's been so disappointing at home?

Human rights? Oh, dear. Human rights are for rich white people who live in Malibu. Unless you can use the issue to whack Republicans. Otherwise, brown, black or yellow people can die by the millions. Dean, Reid & Pelosi, LLC, won't say, "Boo!"

You've got to understand, my fellow citizens: None of this matters. And you don't matter, either. All that matters is scoring political points. Let the world burn. Let the massacres run on. Let the terrorists acquire WMD. Just give the Bush administration a big black eye and we'll call that a win.

The irresponsibility of the Democrats on Capitol Hill is breathtaking.

(How can an honorable man such as Joe Lieberman stay in that party?) Not one of the critics of our efforts in Iraq — not one — has described his or her vision for Iraq and the Middle East in the wake of a troop withdrawal. Not one has offered any analysis of what the terrorists would gain and what they might do. Not one has shown respect for our war dead by arguing that we must put aside our partisan differences and win.

There's plenty I don't like about the Bush administration. Its domestic policies disgust me, and the Bushies got plenty wrong in Iraq. But at least they'll fight. The Dems are ready to betray our troops, our allies and our country's future security for a few House seats.

Surrender is never a winning strategy.

Yes, we've been told lies about Iraq — by Dems and their media groupies. About conditions on the ground. About our troops. About what's at stake. About the consequences of running away from the great struggle of our time. About the continuing threat from terrorism. And about the consequences for you and your family.

What do the Democrats fear? An American success in Iraq. They need us to fail, and they're going to make us fail, no matter the cost. They need to declare defeat before the 2006 mid-term elections and ensure a real debacle before 2008 — a bloody mess they'll blame on Bush, even though they made it themselves.

We won't even talk about the effect quitting while we're winning in Iraq might have on the go-to-war calculations of other powers that might want to challenge us in the future. Let's just be good Democrats and prove that Osama bin Laden was right all along: Americans have no stomach for a fight.

As for the 2,000-plus dead American troops about whom the lefties are so awfully concerned? As soon as we abandon Iraq, they'll forget about our casualties quicker than an amnesiac forgets how much small-change he had in his pocket.

If we run away from our enemies overseas, our enemies will make their way to us. Quit Iraq, and far more than 2,000 Americans are going to die.

And they won't all be conservatives.

Ralph Peters is a retired Army officer.