Quiting...the US Military forced to loose?

[Culpeper]

Quiting...the US Military forced to LOSE?


The Congress was debating the war talking to a General, stating that while they (congress) support the troops, they are disgusted by the constant statements by military officers claiming increased progress levels in Iraq, they no longer "trust" the Generals to give candid assesments.

The is the common denominator on why we lost the conflict in Vietnam. America quit trusting her leaders. All the denominators that resulted in this common denominator were such things as too much waste, ridiculous rules of engagement that a democracy fall prey to in small wars, shameful opportunist politicians and "YES" military leaders that say and do anything for their own benefit at the overall cost of success, the press antagonizing the fighting men in uniform by selling support out of an empty paper sack fueled by anti-war activists, sunshine patriots, and hypocritical political leaders, lifeless leftover energy towards the war effort sapped by too much uneventful and irrelevant debate based on sketchy information that suits the user, the use of political correctness to a fault, which is an understatement, and just plain ignorance on such things as the Constitution trumping the long term national security of our own nation. Now, what is happening in today's small wars are rather minute with what was happening in America during the 1960s, which directly influenced what was happening in Vietnam, at that time. But it doesn't mean that these shortcomings we embrace as a society at war isn't a real danger to our own success.

If we were to take one example that did succeed. Just pluck one example and let it stand alone. It would be the devastating but rather small in comparison to the overall scheme of things at that time would be the battle on Tarawa. "The Canal" was already secured by USMC standards at that time. America trusted its leaders and accepted the losses to gain success there. But Tarawa was a completely different complexity. In this battle the USMC and Navy suffered similar number of losses as Iraq to date but in about three days. The military decided to release those photographs of the aftermath of the battle to the public. The result was outrage by the American people that resulted in such things as congressional investigations and so forth. A rather peculiar phenomenon occurred. The rage settled down to acceptance due to the overall trust in American leadership at all levels. Americans came to grips that the enemy held no quarter for the American fighting man. From this point on it was the enemy that forced a democracy to accept the enemy's fanatical, as opposed to brave, rules of engagement. It was the USMC and the Navy that made the conscious decision to bring the same brand of merciless fighting to the enemy. And America accepted this decision. A single decision by our society that America began to understand and accept losses. Something today's America is unable to accept as a means to an end. We allow the enemy to fight by their rules of engagement as stand alone and come up with our own rules of engagement that actually benefit the enemy rather than destroy the enemy. This results in propaganda boom that is prone to lean towards our failures and ignore our successes. As if the successes have absolutely no correlation to any setbacks. Successes, no matter how small or large, that have a direct or indirect link to losses, have no meaning. The score is always at a fictional two minute warning with America 0: Enemy 999.