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For all the flack the Marines take from other services, I suspect we’d do well in these counterinsurgency situations to listen to them more often and earlier. Max Boot in “The Savage Wars of Peace” makes the point that the USMC has over 100 years experience in this situation, including the successful CAP program in Vietnam, which I see as a direct ancestor of General Petraeus’ successful strategy in Iraq. Lucky for our side, General Petraeus is apparently one Army officer who can learn from Marines’ experience.

If I read the referenced article correctly it appears the it is actually from al-UPI (not al-AP) which surprises me a bit as I always thought they were a little more fair (though to be honest I never really paid attention to them anyway).

1. The title of the article is insulting to all Americans. To say the most generous country in the world just learned how to use “soft power”–which the article incorrectly implies is simply another word for “disaster relief”–is preposterous. Disaster relief from the U.S. has never been abused as a form of exerting soft, hard, or any other texture of power. Relief has always been and continues to be provided for the sake of alleviating suffering. This country’s record of disaster relief is a record all should be proud of and something we are not thanked for enough by the world community and particularly the hollow veto-wielding super-power wannabes who won’t even stop genocide on their own continent (Yugoslavia).

2. You are absolutely right that people side with the winner. If we apply this quality to the overall picture, we can see this is precisely how extremist Libs exacerbated Iraq–by giving the terrorists false hope that they could out-stay us and crush our will to continue. Due to that lack of unity at the most pivotal moment in the face of war, extremist Libs delayed the inevitable awakening of the Iraqi people to take control of their own country by picking the winning side. I submit those extremist Libs, including the especially outspoken Obamessiah who to this very day is still a pathetic “victory-denier”, have American and Iraqi blood on their hands. Don’t forget, he can’t possibly say we are winning because he already hitched his presidential wagon to the America-must-lose mantra.

You are one of the foremost experts in this field of “soft power” vs. “hard power” based on your studies of Machiavelli. It’s Machiavellian that when you make your victory appear eminent is when you gain popular support.

Incidentally, how do they expect us to do soft-power to al Qaeda in Iraq, Hezbollah, the Iranian financed Mahdi Army, the IRGC, and all the rest of the foreign infestation of Iraq? Bring gunis of rice to them and win their hearts and minds? Or maybe try the “carrots and sticks” fiasco on them while they’re shooting at us?

As for the Iraqi people, we’re already building power plants, fixing their water infrastructure, repairing the southern wetlands Saddam drained, and giving them far more than I care to mention here and this is what soft-power really is. Not to mention how much spilled American blood has stained their country for their freedom.

Why do Libs keep changing the subject with their stupid babblings like this?

Humanitarian assistance didn’t turn the tide in Southeast Asia, nor did Rolling Thunder.

But Linebacker I certainly got some people thinking in Hanoi.

And Linebacker II commanded their attention, and their signature on the dotted line in Paris.

People really shouldn’t forget history.

Least of all those tasked with the formulation and execution of foreign policy.

What most do not realize that when we label liberals who want us out of Iraq as supporting losing a war, that is not how they look at it at all. Liberals, Democrats, and especially Obama visualize leaving Iraq as actually a win, not a loss. We don’t understand that kind of thinking but it is precisely how they view the world. As long as the result is what they consider the right thing to do, it is a victory - plain and simple. Leaving Iraq within a predetermined timetable is actually a plan for victory in the liberal world. Forget any consequences that most certainly will occur, that is simply the price for obtaining a victory. Liberals don’t see victory the same way as conservatives do. Liberals don’t understand that it can take a short time to achieve a victory on one level but it may take years or even decades to win the total war.

Liberals don’t understand the mentality or the mindset of radical Islamists. In the liberal world, only their viewpoint or belief is the only thing that matters and given time, they believe they can bring everyone around to their way of thinking. In some fantasy world of campfires and folk songs, they are convinced that radicals are simply misunderstood but once they see the light, will turn their backs of centuries of hatred and constant indoctrination by their religious leaders about the evils of nonbelievers and apostates. They don’t understand or comprehend a religion that has taught hate in the radical element for over 1,000 years and it will not change anytime soon if ever.

I tried to explain to a friend recently how a business associate could actually steal from him and not believe he did anything wrong. My friend couldn’t understand the concept and I kept telling him that if he didn’t try to understand the why, he would be taken advantage of again and very soon. He could not comprehend the fact that some people who steal do so with a rigid sense of entitlement or honest justification. It may be that the thief believes he or she is due the purloined money or goods because of position, lack of pay, or any other legitimate self dilusioned excuse available at the time. Just as my friend couldn’t understand why the associate stole from him, liberals and their enablers who cannot understand the depth of hatred held by the religious fanatics in the Islamic world toward this country. They cannot understand that lying to us is considered honorable and fair within their religious doctrine. They cannot understand or comprehend the how or why the mullahs in Iran keep offering a sniff of a carrot to us and have no intention of cooperating or keeping any agreement.

To this end, we will soon be held in the grasp of yet another visit to Fantasy Island where all things are good and everyone tells the truth. Problem is that it will be under an Obama occupied White House and we know by now that Obama and the truth have a passing acquaintance at best.

And Linebacker II commanded their attention, and their signature on the dotted line in Paris.

The liberals won on two counts. The US left then they witheld logistics support so the North defeated the South.

Congress cut the legs out from the deal that Nixon procured.

ALL material assistance ended.

All financial assistance likewise.

The Bombers, which we promised would be on standby if the North renewed military operations, were, via Congressional fiat, ordered to remain idle.

We asked the men, and they were real men, we asked those men to fight without ammunition, without spareparts, without armour support, or the air support to cripple the enemy’s armour. We asked them to fight when we had sent a signal that they were ripe for the taking.

We left them twisting in the wind, as few nations have ever left a nation in the wind.

It was the MOST shameful moment in American history. One of the most shameful in all of Western history.

And it was all, ALL due to the Democrats, and their fixation on defeat, on despair, on depression.

The Democrat party is the party of organized pathology in the United States.

Blood, nothing but blood all over them, the blood of the innocent, who relied upon them, who relied upon their averments of good faith, when black treachery harboured within them.

There has to be a special place in the infernal region for those that sent the decent people of Vietnam to the wall.

And Israel would do well, VERY well to closely mark how events unfolded in Southeast Asia.

They too are relying upon assurances, when Washington hasn’t any intention of making good on those assurances if they should ever be called upon to do so.

Notes are being written without any intention of being honoured.

The Israelis are being set up.

Soft power is a bad idea that does not respect
borders. There is a former Canadian Foreign Minister who is the President of Simon Fraser University, and his surname is Axworthy.

He has been working on this since the ’90s, and regardless of how or when it is implemented, a bad idea is a bad idea.

Indeed, the US military is the biggest humanitarion organization in the world according to Robert D. Kaplan. And that’s just great. Plus the US military has enough fire power to keep the peace and run the humanitarian programs any where in this planet. After all, it is America. The most generous nation on earth.

AFRICOM has had a humanitarian aspect to its mission from the get go.