Shades of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon…and George Bush!

Here we go again with John McCain!

For some time now I’ve been expounding on very obvious parallels between the length, breadth & depth of major U.S. involvement in SE Asia and SW Asia…and the fatal mistake of getting bogged down in direct military involvement which invariably leads to the perpetual quagmire of conducting counterinsurgency operations as an occupying power on foreign soil.
1. SE Asia - Primarily Vietnam, Cambodia & Laos (from 1945 to 1973 for 28 years).
2. SW Asia - Primarily Iraq (from 1979 to Present for 29 years thus far) & Afghanistan (from 2001 to Present for 7 years so far).

One would think that we would have learned from our mistakes, and from the mistakes of others who have also gotten bogged down in attempting to counter (put down) insurgencies far from home, e.g., the French who preceded us in SE Asia (Indochina) for 9 years until 1954, and the Russians who preceded us in SW Asia (Afghanistan) for 11 years until 1989. There are others that I could cite, but these are the most obvious.

Whatever lessons we learned, however, have been ignored since the “get go”, i.e., since 2001.

Mr. Bush’s SW Asia political and military foreign policies confirm the just cited parallels.

Mr. McCain has just confirmed these parallels yet once again…by putting a number to them that even he knows is not real, i.e., “2013″. He ought to know better, seeing as he supposedly exercises common sense, whereas Mr. Bush either does not (or cannot) exercise the same.

For some altogether unknown reason, Mr. McCain apparently thinks that the U.S. could have prevailed militarily and politically in SE Asia, particularly in Vietnam…if U.S. military forces had just stayed there a few more years…until now perhaps, i.e., some 45 years after President Kennedy beefed up the Special Forces advisors there?

The problem with this wrong thinking is simply this. Insurgencies can always be sustained longer than counterinsurgencies, militarily and politically…especially the former.

After the defeat of the Japanese in 1945, the U.S. was indirectly involved with SE Asia (primarily what is today Vietnam) until 1963. Later, the U.S. was directly involved for another 10 years in conducting an unsuccessful counterinsurgency (i.e., individual military battles were won, but the burning candle of insurgency stayed lit). The latter 10 of 28 years were the hot years of U.S. involvement, whereby there was a long and bloody deployment and withdrawal of U.S. military forces.

President Truman’s indifference to Ho Chi Minh and the latter’s aspirations to eject French colonialists started the ball rolling after World War II.

President Eisenhower and congress spent $billions supporting the last few gasps of French colonialism until 1954, and $billions more supporting a South Vietnamese “democracy” until 1961. President Kennedy (1961-63) and then President Johnson (plus an easily persuaded congress) continued the ball rolling with the deployment of advisors, and then with a major deployment of regular forces after the so called Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964.

After the overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1979, the U.S. became indirectly involved with Iraq (and with our then ally, Saddam Hussein) until 1990 (said involvment beginning with President Carter, and continuing under presidents Reagan and G.H.W. Bush). In 1991, U.S. military forces were deployed into SW Asia (i.e., Saudi Arabia, Kuwait & finally southern Iraq) over the issue of oil.

The bottom line insofar as “2013″ is this. If Mr. McCain is elected to the presidency, the next thing he will be saying is, “Let’s just give it until 2017.”

In the meantime, the privileged few in the U.S. will just keep on profiting from war…and from oil (which is pushing an astounding $130 a barrel!).

U.S. debt will continue to skyrocket with our military deployments in SW Asia costing an astounding $100 billion per year.

Likewise, succeeding generations of young Americans will continue to sacrifice their lives or limbs, sight, hearing and physical & mental health on the counterinsurgency battlefields of SW Asia…against a perpetual insurgency. You know the math so far.

If there is a solution to all of this, it is one that must be implemented by those who are indigenous to SW Asia, not by those who are indigenous to North America.

The overriding issue for future peace in SW Asia is one which nobody really wants to address in a realistic way because it is political dynamite for American politicians in all “three houses” of government, i.e., the House of Representatives, the Senate & the White House.

This issue is “Palestine”.

Said unresolved issue will remain unresolved until the “last man standing”. Israel will never stop expanding its borders until each and every Arab within Gaza, the West Bank and the Golan Heights is absorbed into the Jewish state, or until each Arab leaves and is absorbed into surrounding Muslim states. The descendants of Palestinian refugees from 1948 will never be allowed to return to “Palestine”.

Said unresolved issue of “Palestine” is not one that will ever be solved by the U.S. being bogged down figting a perpetual counterinsurgency in Iraq or in Afghanistan.

Our resources are not infinite. Our young soldiers, marines, airmen & sailors cannot simply be looked upon as a “renewable resource” to be expended indiscriminately by politicians for the sake of bad foreign policy.

Our Best & Finest are too precious to their families…to all of us…to be looked upon that way.

Let’s find Osama bin Laden and get it over with, shall we?

Best Regards,
Oklahoma Jack

Don’t forget that he also solved global hunger and poverty, drove down inflation, and ended racial genocide worldwide, all while promising weekly press conferences and Q&A sessions before Congress. What a hero!!

Vote for change. Yes we can.