There is no better teacher than history.
As President Obama begins his own surge policy in Afghanistan, it is important that our leaders heed the lessons of history. Throughout our nation’s history, there is no more glaring failure in wartime than Vietnam.
President Obama would do well to consider President Ford’s folly in Cambodia before ordering his pre-ordained 2011 retreat.
As America was tailing it out of Vietnam, pro-American forces in Asia were consigned to their own brutal future of torture, murder and oppression. The “shining city on a hill” and “last best hope” of the world had left the building and in so doing, turned the lights out.
As South Vietnam was steamrolled by North Vietnam tanks, liberty died a slow and painful death as Communism took more lives. At the time U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger sent a letter to pro-American ally and leader of Cambodia, Sirik Matak. The letter offered to evacuate our ally from the certain death hurtling toward him by the recently appeased and seemingly unstoppable Commies.
Matak’s response is one of raw human courage, the likes of which we only see among our greatest of leaders. In a letter to Kissinger, Matak replied:
“I thank you very sincerely for your letter and your offer to transport me towards freedom. I cannot, alas, leave Cambodia in such a cowardly fashion. As for you, and in particular your great country, I never believed for a moment that you would…[abandon] a people which have chosen liberty. You have refused us your protection, and we can do nothing about it. You leave, and my wish is that you and your country will find happiness under the sky. [If I die here] I have committed only this mistake of believing you.”
When the newly emboldened Communists took Phnem Penh, Matak was shot in the stomach and left for dead. He took 3 days to slowly bleed to death.
By contrast, we now know that Soviet prisoner Natan Anatoly Sharansky heard the courage (or folly if you listened to liberal elites) of President Reagan’s words when he denounced the Soviet Union as an “evil empire” while in the Soviet prisons. Those words brought him hope and they were conveyed to his fellow prisoners as he tapped out Reagan’s courageous message in morse code on the bars of his cell.
America has an obligation to not abandon our allies in the face of brutal oppression.
Before the pre-ordained retreat of 2011 (and subsequent Taliban “surge”) begins, President Obama would do well to drink deep of the American courage demonstrated time and time again in the face of brutal regimes determined to crush liberty, instead of parroting one of America’s most embarrassing failures. The women and children of Afghanistan should not be abandoned to the same fate as Sirik Matak.
If there remains any doubt on the part of our president, he needs to resolve himself to the cause of liberty. He needs to understand America’s role in Afghanistan is the same as it has always been–one of liberation and not of conquest.
President Reagan’s speech celebrating the great World War II veterans of the battle of Normandy on June 6, 1984 made this point about America crystal clear:
“The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge–and pray God we have not lost it–that there is profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.”
Let there be no doubt from the White House to the villages of Afghanistan to the caves of Pakistan that America will stand for freedom–no matter the cost.
Dan McLaughlin
Moe Lane
Neil Stevens
Steve Maley
Powerful diary Bill!!
nessa (Diary) Monday, December 14th at 6:46PM EST (link)I’m afraid the boypresident would choke on such a foreign draught as “American courage”, he’s never even smelled it, much less brought cup to lip. You can’t buy it, not even at the most outrageously priced farmers market and code pink certainly doesn’t distill it.
“If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
Contributor to Unified Patriots
teh twitter
BIG BRObama Does NOT Want Victory in Afghanistan: Latest Policy Move Proves It
Ausonius (Diary) Monday, December 14th at 6:46PM EST (link)Your last line is unfortunately not about to happen: there is all kinds of doubt coming from this moron: today there is a decision to r e d u c e drone attacks against Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The stated reason is to prevent civilian casualties: but drone attacks by design will reduce civilian casualties!
See:
http://newsmax.com/InsideCover/barack-obama-cia-drone/2009/12/14/id/342601
Two excerpts:
“Reports indicate that President Barack Obama intends to block the growth of the CIA’s largely successful clandestine program of using missiles fired by drones to kill key al-Qaida leaders in Pakistan.
A debate over expanding the program has reportedly been ongoing among Obama and his advisers for the past year.”
“The attacks have killed over a dozen al-Qaida leaders in the past two years. The body count includes Abu Khabab al-Masri ? al-Qaida’s alleged top specialist in the area of weapons of mass destruction ? and Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani Taliban mastermind of Benazir Bhutto’s murder.”
So sure: let’s STOP a “largely successful” program!
Ausonius: 310-395 A.D. Teacher, Poet, Consul, General, Farmer.
Personal Tutor to the future St. Paulinus of Nola and to young Gratian, heir to the throne during the turbulent final years of the Western Roman Empire. When his former student Gratian was assassinated, Ausonius threw up his hands and retired to his farm in Gaul. Rome was captured by barbarians 14 years after his death.
Cato@rock.com
Obama is either negotiating with the Taliban..
Veronica (Diary) Monday, December 14th at 10:56PM EST (link)..cross-reference his West Point speech with that put out a few days before Mullah Omar..
or he’s sorely embarrased about this headline:
“Obama orders more drone attacks since taking office than Bush did in 3 years ”
http://www.examiner.com/x-27874-Alameda-County-Progressive-Examiner~y2009m10d30-Obama-orders-more-drone-attacks-since-taking-office-than-Bush-did-in-8-years
Weak and/or negotiating with terrorists.
Entirely un-American.
Bill — while your post was endearing to my heart as a patriot, it’s too optimisitc and not at all practical to wish honor and strength from this president.
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Pray as if everything depends on God, and work as if everything depends on us. – St. Augustine
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thx for the inspiration
Veronica (Diary) Tuesday, December 15th at 12:07AM EST (link)http://www.redstate.com/veronicaestrada/2009/12/14/obama-scales-back-on-drones-to-meet-his-puny-level-of-commitment-in-afghanistan/
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Pray as if everything depends on God, and work as if everything depends on us. – St. Augustine
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that Obama and most Democrats have not learned the lessons of history is fundamental and I truly beleive that the only way Obama would learn
Mike gamecock DeVine (Diary) Tuesday, December 15th at 1:31PM EST (link)the lessons is he, PERSONALLY, is threatened or affected by his naivete/liberal religion, i.e. a terror attack on the White House or Chicago. Or he might get tough to get re-elected.
If 911 didn’t concentrate the mind….
Mike DeVine’s Examiner.com, Charlotte Observer and The Minority Report columns
“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson
i think he's nomadic in nature and has allegiance to no-thing and no one.
Veronica (Diary) Tuesday, December 15th at 5:20PM EST (link)so nothing can be held as ransom and he cannot be threatened.
read this:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/06/obama_the_african_colonial.html
I know the type of individual they speak of. You’ll find the same sort of person in the illegal immigrant who feels entittled to the benefits of this country. Not all area like this, only some. They feel no allegiance to this country, no sense of “property” or “rights” — the same as Obama.
He was a drifter for much of his life — growing up without a father. A father. Not even the “ownership” of a father.
So, no — Obama is a member of the lost and ultimate dispossesed who owns, feels nothing.
Not even when toweres fall.
And if he cannot relate with most of our boys on the ground, as far as American values (valuing the pursuit and ownership of property and rights), how can he claim to give a rats ass about them?
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Pray as if everything depends on God, and work as if everything depends on us. – St. Augustine
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isn't that just like him?
Bill@cityonahillpolitics (Diary) Monday, December 14th at 6:57PM EST (link)You hope that the guy will get a spine while he’s in office, but he continues to be, as Sean Hannity calls him, “Jimmy Carter on steroids.” Why in the world does this administration think that blinking in the face of evil/terrorism/communism/genocide/etc is the wise choice to make? Emboldening the enemies of freedom has proven time and time again to leave all those who love freedom and liberty more open to attack.
America (and the world) needs a leader with the courage of Ronald Reagan. The stakes are high and freedom is under assault.
Bill
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I prefer to call him...
kyle8 (Diary) Monday, December 14th at 7:05PM EST (link)The dishonest Jimmy Carter.
“Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty”
Kyle
BIG BRObama Is a Pacifist: Victory In War Is Therefore Immoral
Ausonius (Diary) Monday, December 14th at 8:05PM EST (link)That is why MAObama chokes in the face of evil: as a relativist, he knows that there is no evil – except for racism and capitalism – which would need to be opposed by war.
War is immoral, therefore using “victory” or “win” in reference to war is immoral. Withdrawal and cessation of hostilities is the only solution.
Wars, however, against racism and capitalism are quite fine!
Ausonius: 310-395 A.D. Teacher, Poet, Consul, General, Farmer.
Personal Tutor to the future St. Paulinus of Nola and to young Gratian, heir to the throne during the turbulent final years of the Western Roman Empire. When his former student Gratian was assassinated, Ausonius threw up his hands and retired to his farm in Gaul. Rome was captured by barbarians 14 years after his death.
Cato@rock.com
If Obama knew or cared about history
kyle8 (Diary) Monday, December 14th at 9:48PM EST (link)he would not have tried to create prosperity with borrowed money.
“Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty”
Kyle
Highly recommended......... and to go along with an absolutely great diary, here's some recent history from Somalia.
Kenny Solomon (Diary) Monday, December 14th at 10:08PM EST (link)You know Somalia…… The US has imported entire communities from the country….. Not like that’s been in the news or anything.
Pamela Geller has the latest tourist photos from Somalia on Atlas Shrugs.
Warning….. This is reality….. Not exactly American Idol reality, but reality nonetheless….. Islamic reality actually.
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/12/islamic-justice-muslim-militants-stone-man-to-death-for-adultery.html
And before anyone says it to me…… No. I’m not going to quit it. No thank you. Not now. Not ever.
No apologies Mr. President, as I can no longer abide by what you ordered when in Turkey.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-By-President-Obama-To-The-Turkish-Parliament
“We seek broader engagement based upon mutual interest and mutual respect. We will listen carefully, we will bridge misunderstanding, and we will seek common ground. We will be respectful even when we do not agree.”
Respect that, Mr. President ?
I think not.
Then again, maybe they were “misunderstanding Islam”. Let’s find out……………
Hadith – Book 017, Number 4206
“‘Abdullah b. Buraida reported on the authority of his father that Ma’iz b. Malik al-Aslami came to Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) and said: Allah’s Messenger, I have wronged myself; I have committed adultery and I earnestly desire that you should purify me. He turned him away. On the following day, he (Ma’iz) again came to him and said: Allah’s Messenger, I have committed adultery . Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) turned him away for the second time, and sent him to his people saying: Do you know if there is anything wrong with his mind. They denied of any such thing in him and said: We do not know him but as a wise good man among us, so far as we can judge. He (Ma’iz) came for the third time, and he (the Holy Prophet) sent him as he had done before. He asked about him and they informed him that there was nothing wrong with him or with his mind. When it was the fourth time, a ditch was dug for him and he (the Holy Prophet) pronounced judgment about him and he was stoned.”
Whoops. I guess not. Sucks to be him.