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Ralph Peters is a regular columnist with the New
York Post.
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 How
To Lose A War
A lesson in cut and run...
[Ralph
Peters] 11/22/05
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.
Contributors
Ralph Peters - Contributor
Ralph
Peters is a retired Army officer and the author of 19 books,
as well as of hundreds of essays and articles, written both
under his own name and as Owen Parry. He is a frequent columnist
for the New York Post and other publications. [go to Peters Index] |
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. -one-
Ralph Peters'
latest book is New
Glory: Expanding America's Global Supremacy
This
piece first appeared in the New
York Post
copyright 2004 - NY Post
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