Sadr’s Glorious….Surrender
April 1st, 2008 at 02:20am Mark Noonan
As noted by Dave Price over at Dean’s World:
The media appear to be unanimous: by getting his butt kicked, surrendering control of Basra, and being mocked as an Iranian catspaw Sadr has… succeeded.
Many Iraqi politicians say that Mr. Maliki’s political capital has been severely depleted by the Basra campaign
Really? The same Iraqi politicians who were so opposed to Sadr they boycotted talks aimed at a peaceful resolution, calling it a “law and order” issue, thus preventing a quorum?
and that he is in the curious position of having to turn to Mr. Sadr, a longtime rival, for a way out.
Yes, how strange that he would talk to the enemy when negotiating that enemy’s surrender. Bizarre, yet. Perhaps even unique in the annals of war.
It’s hard to believe how reality-averse the analysis on this confrontation has been:
”Al-Sadr achieved what he wanted,” said Vali Nasr, an expert on Shiite politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. “He stood his ground, made his point and showed he has the real power in the south, not his rivals.”
He didn’t stand his ground, he ordered his men to hide indoors like whipped dogs. He showed he has the real power to… what, exactly? Lose hundreds of fighters in a few days, then surrender?
Al-Sadr, 34, was bold enough to place demands on al-Maliki’s administration.
Cute. Terms of surrrender are now “demands.”
At the end of it all, Price takes note of this from Bill Roggio:
571 Mahdi Army fighters have been killed, 881 have been wounded, 490 have been captured, and 30 have surrendered over the course of seven days of fighting
I’m of the opinion that Sadr was ordered to rebel by his Iranian masters in a desperate bid to prevent the complete destruction of Iran’s terrorist infrastructure in Iraq. It was a hope that Sadr’s forces could make it seem as though the Iraqi government was powerless to stop him. For the MSM - and the left - this worked like a charm; they really think that Sadr’s rabble can stand up to the Iraqi military. But for all those not sunk deep into BDS, it was clearly pretty quickly that Sadr’s troops were paying a high price - and, it would seem, such a high price that Sadr was forced to capitulate before his whole force was destroyed.
Congratulations are due to the brave men of the Iraqi security forces, and their American allies who backed them up during this sharp battle.
Entry Filed under: War on Terror
42 Comments Add your own
1. Freedom1 | April 1st, 2008 at 2:56 am
Hahaha! Sadr got slammed! Good job Iraqi Security Forces! Sadr is a loser.
2. Marty13 | April 1st, 2008 at 5:58 am
AP reports: “The peace deal between al-Sadr and Iraqi government forces _ said to have been brokered in Iran _ calmed the violence but left the cleric’s Mahdi Army intact and Iraq’s U.S.-backed prime minister politically battered and humbled within his own Shiite power base.”
The postmortem on this debacle show our sock puppet Maliki being forced to confront one of multiple gangs / militias in the region. He sends his less than vaunted security forces into the AO where they proceed to get thumped by well armed and committed forces that are far more familiar with the battle ground. It is only after the introduction of US and Brit air-power does Iran finally rein in their surrogates (till next time)…………and you call this a win!!!
Maliki has been humiliated, his security forces exposed as inept and unwilling and we have an up close and personal look at a factionalized country tearing itself to pieces.
Freedom your military and geopolitical opinions sound like they’ve been forged in the crucible of your video game collection.
3. Arctic Fox | April 1st, 2008 at 7:42 am
Maliki is worried that the same thing might happen in Iraq as happened in Palestine. That the opposition “terrorist” group - Hamas, in the case of Palestine, who won substantial political victories in 2006 - popular with the general population, might make substantial ground and could even win a political victory in upcoming elections. That hasn’t changed.
Note the reasons Sadr gave for ordering his troops to stand down - for religious purposes, and to prevent bloodshed. Both of those will be popular among the common Iraqi population.
No matter what spin you put on it, Maliki’s central demand was that Sadr’s people hand over their weapons. That hasn’t happened, and doesn’t look likely to happen. From that point of view, Maliki has lost and Sadr has won, since what became a deadline for unequivocal surrender then became a flexible agenda for allowing weapons to be purchased by the government. That lack of a showing of strength is far more important in the Islamic world than it would be here. Maliki has lost considerable face being unable to enforce his demand for Sadr’s weapons.
Both Sadr and Maliki are preparing for the elections. Sadr is running on the “Get the foreign invaders out” ticket, precisely what Hamas ran on for the 2006 elections, where they won a surprisingly large victory. Maliki still isn’t sure what kind of thing he can offer his people, so he wants to disarm the main opposition - Sadr - in order to round them up to prevent them running.
Regardless of the spin this “article” tries to put on the situation, that’s how things are shaping up for the elections there. The results should be very interesting.
4. js | April 1st, 2008 at 7:48 am
i didnt hear maliki recind the 8 april deadline
anyone else?
5. Arctic Fox | April 1st, 2008 at 7:55 am
Oh yes, the April 8 deadline, which was supposed to be the March 29 deadline. While you’re quick to point out that yes, the “deadline” was extended by 10 days, the very fact that it was extended is a loss of face in the Islamic world. You don’t use terms like “unconditional surrender by 29 March” and then back down and change it to “let us buy your weapons by April 8″.
Nice try.
6. Cavalor Epthith, Esquire, D.S.V.J. | April 1st, 2008 at 8:35 am
“Congratulations are due to the brave men of the Iraqi security forces, and their American allies who backed them up during this sharp battle.”
You would do better to thank the manufacturers of the cluster bombs that were dropped on Basra by air assets without which the Mehdi Army would still be fighting a successful hit and run campaign. The very need to state that the American allies backed them up shows how unprepared the Iraqi forces are at this time. It would be enlightening to see how they would perform having to rely on their own assets [they have none] and without the knowledge that US forces are two steps behind them and ready to assure their success. I have come around to a McCain inspired point of view on Iraq I think America should stay for 100 years because they owe full repair to the Iraqi people. Rational military minds and political ones as well know the only way to end this conflict is by a direct engagement between government forces and the Mehdi Army. If the US insists on supporting the Maliki government then they needed to continue to press the Mehdi and destroy them. The longer the Mehdi remain in eastern Baghdad the longer Iran will support them leading eventually to an Iranian military presence in Baghdad.
So in one way Mr Noonan you will get your war with iran sooner than you think. The iranians need not do anything spectacular all they need to do is fight a holding action that allows the world markets enough time to panic doubling the current price of crude. This is something Saudi Arabia could live with as well as Iran, Venezuela, Oman Kuwait and the UAE. OPEC today makes roughly 1.3 billion dollars from exporting oil to the US per day a doubling of that with no decrease in production would certainly be welcomed.
However American consumers will not be happy at paying $6 plus per gallon for petrol, but I am sure some happy patriotic spin can be put on it. Something to the effect of “better 6 dollar petrol in the tank than civilian American blood on the streets.”
7. jerry | April 1st, 2008 at 9:03 am
Mark-
You are factually impaired. Sadr wasn’t the one who initiated attacks. It was Maliki. He did this in my opinion with the blessing of Cheney who greased the wheels for regional elections to occurr in Oct. Maliki knew if things stayed as is he would lose and lose big to the Sadrists in Oct. So he thought, wrongly, he could he easily crush Sadr. Now it seems members Maliki’s Dawa party negotiated the cease fire with out Maliki. They told him they were doing and it was done. Maliki looks like Ngô Đình Diệm in 1963.
8. Macker | April 1st, 2008 at 9:21 am
Sadr is a Lazy Sod!
9. CesarChavez | April 1st, 2008 at 9:25 am
First off, aren’t things supposed to be better in Iraq now? We’ve been surgin’ a long time.
Better? Oh, that’s right, because the Iraqi government is FIGHTING, things are better.
Fighting is better. Even more fighting is more better.
My God, what a mess. Things are so GOOD now that the Brits have decided to stay a while longer.
So the gosh darn MSM is at it again.
Dave Price knows better. See ole Dave knows more than Vali Nasar, a Shi’ite expert. Yep, you gotta love the know it all bloggers.
Things aren’t better, the surge was a farce. We PAID the Iraqi militias to stop fighting. We armed them.
More laughable is that IRAN brokered the cease fire. Yeesh. They’re the peace makers in this event. Go figure.
Surrender? I don’t see anybody in cuffs. I see the Iraqi government RELEASING captured militia members.
A blogger quoting a blogger.
You just gotta love it.
10. Rich | April 1st, 2008 at 11:19 am
Wow I never thought I would see so many Mehdi army cheerleaders on this site. Guess we should rename it BlogsforMoqtada. But seriously, every time the Mehdi Army is engaged in actually fighting, they totally get their butts handed to them ala Najaf and Kufa in 2004 and then this past week. To try and paint this as a victory for Sadr is a joke. I see Cavolor bitching about cluster bombs and our military backing the Iraqi army up. How in the hell is backing our allies up a bad thing? Next we have Arctic Fox blabbing on about a loss of face and blah blah blah. The real loss of face was Sadr’s forces, whom got their asses handed to them. Call it a moral victory if you want, but a few more moral victories like that and the Mehdi army will be devastated.
11. Diana Powe | April 1st, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Prime Minister al-Maliki makes a public and unconditional statement:
Declaring on February 2nd that he will “crush the terrorists and target their strongholds” he ultimately goes to Basra to take personal contol of the government forces there. Then, when it is clear that the insurgents are not going to actually be “crushed”, the option that he has already publicly ruled out - negotiation - brings an end to the fighting. What is to be the reaction of the Iraqi man-in-the-street in a region where strongman governments are the norm? It’s a perfectly enjoyable parlor game for those vested in the notion of “victory” to project their beliefs onto the facts, however, when ordinary Iraqis go to the polls in October and decide who is stronger in Iraq, they will have their own interpretation of what happened in Basra when Prime Minister al-Maliki put his reputation on the line and couldn’t do what he had said he would do.
Meanwhile, right-wing American bloggers may pause from playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat long enough to natter away amongst themselves with lots of tough-guy talk of “their asses being handed to them” in their best Churchillian warrior manner.
12. David B. Schmidt | April 1st, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Last I have heard, and I could be wrong, Maliki has appeared not to accept Sadr’s surrender and is still pushing forward.
On an OT note-200 billion barrel oil field has been discovered in N. Dakota. Wonder who will jump first to stop us from drilling there?
13. Rich | April 1st, 2008 at 3:42 pm
So Diana’s new definition of victory is not who wins the battle, not who wins the body count, not who is driven from the field of battle, not when one side surrender’s, not when one side sues for peace. No Diana’s view is that because a politician stated one thing would happen, and he was not 100 percent right, that his side has suffered a horrible defeat. I think your new name here should be Tokyo Rose.
14. bongoman | April 1st, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Huh? You’re conveniently forgetting that al-Maliki initiated the attacks on the Mahdi Army in Basra.
It was a fiasco for al-Maliki, no matter how you try and spin it.
And the supreme irony is that the peace deal was brokered by an Iranian General who is on the US terrorist list!
How on earth did it come to this? I suppose we’ll just have to stay 100 years…
15. Diana Powe | April 1st, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Rich,
The real bottom line of what I wrote is that it doesn’t make a dime’s worth of difference what tough-guy nonsense you want to come out with or how my own assessment is based on what people who specialize in the region think. What ultimately matters and what Premier al-Maliki was trying to affect was his party’s electoral chances in local elections in six months. Given that he not only declared that he would never negotiate AND he personally went to Basra to supervise the effort which lead to his having to negotiate, the reasonable belief is that the average Iraqi will see that the Premier was not capable of doing what he said he would do as compared to al-Sadr being able to control his loyalists in Basra. Premier al-Maliki wanted to “crush” the insurgents and have them surrender their weapons, then offered to buy their weapons and, in the end, they kept their weapons to use another day. Who exerted their political will, the central Iraqi government or Muqtada al-Sadr? The Iraqi voters will decide.
16. Marty13 | April 1st, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Rich opines, “So Diana’s new definition of victory is not who wins the battle, not who wins the body count, not who is driven from the field of battle, not when one side surrender’s, not when one side sues for peace….”
Rich two words, VIET NAM!!!!
Remember, we won the battles, piled up the bodies and drove em from the field. We also got entangled in what was essentially a civil war, backed a corrupt government and fought a foe who wouldn’t fight conventionally. Sound familiar?
To call Diana Tokyo Rose clearly indicates your grasp of history is at best, tenuous.
17. felix the cat | April 1st, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Mark is a zealot and as such, has contempt for facts that contradict what he tries to sell to the opinionated and uninformed who gather here. He is a one demensional patriot who lacks the intellect to consider the possibility that he might be mistaken. I personally find this breed of surity to be a pathway to being totally wrong about everything. It is amazing that so many here equate a statement of factuality with a support of the same. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Here are some objective facts:
“U.S. military officials speaking on Iraqi T.V. with the approval of General Petraeus refered to Sadar as “His exellency Muqtada”. Now I wonder why this is???
Ryan Crocker, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq said in Baghdad last week “Sadar is not the enemy”.
The United States has close to a trillion dollars in off balance sheet expenditures in Iraq and for what? We have built an embassy the size of Atlanta and for what? We have a financial crisis here at home because of the borrowed money we have spent in Iraq and yet folks like Mark with his crappy little website continue to cheerlead abject failure and incompetence all inthe name of hating “liberals” or “democrats” or upholders of the intent of the constitution.
Disgusting really you are….
18. Indigo | April 1st, 2008 at 7:46 pm
“Huh? You’re conveniently forgetting that al-Maliki initiated the attacks on the Mahdi Army in Basra.
It was a fiasco for al-Maliki, no matter how you try and spin it.
And the supreme irony is that the peace deal was brokered by an Iranian General who is on the US terrorist list!”
Wow. Nice work. 5 minutes of research has confirmed what you have stated. How did it come to this?
19. Rich | April 1st, 2008 at 8:40 pm
“Rich two words, VIET NAM!!!!
Remember, we won the battles, piled up the bodies and drove em from the field.”
Thanks for proving my point about Tokyo Rose moron.
-http://bartonbulletin.wordpress.com/2007/12/05/will-we-remember-or-repeat-the-past/
———————————————————-
Four-star General Vo Nguyen Giap led Vietnam’s armies from their inception, in the 1940s, up to the moment of their triumphant entrance into Saigon in 1975.
He has recently published his memoirs and here’s a direct quote from the Supreme Commander of the North Vietnamese Army:
“What we still don’t understand is why you Americans stopped the bombing of Hanoi or the mining of Haiphong Harbor. You had us on the ropes. If you had pressed us a little harder, just for another day or two, we were ready to surrender. It was the same at the battle of Tet. You defeated us. We knew it. We thought you knew it. But we were elated to notice that your media was definitely helping us. They were causing more disruption in America than we could in the battlefield. We were ready to surrender. You had won.”
In his book, Giap clearly indicated that NVA troops were without sufficient supplies, and had been continually defeated time and again.
By 1968, NVA morale was at it’s lowest point ever. The plan for “Tet” ‘68 was their last desperate attempt to achieve a success, in an effort to boost the NVA morale. When it was over, General Giap and the NVA viewed the Tet ‘68 offensive as a failure, they were on their knees and had prepared to negotiate surrender.
At that time, there were fewer than 10,000 U.S. casualties, the Vietnam War was about to end, as the NVA was prepared to accept their defeat. Then, they heard Walter Cronkite (former CBS News anchor and correspondent) on TV proclaiming the success of the Tet ‘68 offensive by the communist NVA. They were completely and totally amazed at hearing that the US Embassy had been overrun. In reality, The NVA had not gained access to the Embassy–there were some VC who had been killed on the grassy lawn, but they hadn’t gained access. Further reports indicated the riots and protesting on the streets of America. But, when ‘Uncle Walter’, the most trusted correspondent in America, told the American people that February in 1968, “Who won and who lost in the great Tet offensive against the cities? I’m not sure,” waffling public opinion changed. Cronkite may not have been sure, but Gen. Giap sure knew.
According to Giap, these distorted reports were inspirational to the NVA. They changed their plans from a negotiated surrender and decided instead, they only needed to persevere for one more hour, day, week, or month, and eventually the protesters in America would help them to achieve a victory they knew they could not win on the battlefield. Remember, this decision was made at a time when the U.S. casualties were fewer than 10,000, at the end of 1967, beginning of 1968.
Cronkite said, “The Vietcong did not win by a knockout, but neither did we. The referees of history may make it a draw.” No, it wasn’t even close to a draw . . . and Giap understood, if the media didn’t. However, that lesson ignored does underscore that the media is the first draft of history, and their errors, omissions and prejudices are obvious in their copy.
We won every military engagement of the Vietnam War, every one. Yet, Walter Cronkite and the American media conspired with the enemy to do what the North Vietnamese could not do on the battlefield.
He, General Giap, makes the point the Vietnam War was not lost in Vietnam; it was lost here. That’s why I keep telling everybody that the Mainstream Media and the Democrats are seeking a self fulfilling prophecy. They are trying to do the same thing in Iraq that they did in Vietnam for a host of reasons. Not the least of which among them was to re-establish their own ability to influence people in the United States into losing a war by surrendering, to re-enact their glory years of the Post Viet Nam Era brought about by losing a war, bringing down a Republican President and setting the tone conducive to their Socialist’s view of the future. Thirty-one years ago, that gave us Jimmy Carter, arguably the first treasonous ex-President this country ever produced and whose policies, as President, we are still paying for.
20. bongoman | April 1st, 2008 at 9:03 pm
How about we address the morality of invading and occupying countries that are not an imminent threat? As ye sow…
And Mark’s ludicrous suggestion that Sadr is obeying his Iranian overlords shows he knows about as much as McCain about the situation there.
21. Diana Powe | April 1st, 2008 at 9:04 pm
It’s unfortunate that Rich has gone to some trouble to quote at length from an urban legend:
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/giap.asp
Oops.
22. Rich | April 1st, 2008 at 9:30 pm
“And Mark’s ludicrous suggestion that Sadr is obeying his Iranian overlords shows he knows about as much as McCain about the situation there.”
Where has Sadr been that last year Bongoman?
23. Rich | April 1st, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Here ya go Tokyo Rose. Looks like I had some “forged documents”. If you had even read your snopes article, you would have read about Bui Tin, who says basically the exact same thing.
http://www.viet-myths.net/BuiTin.htm
——————————————————
What did the North Vietnamese leadership think of the American antiwar movement? What was the purpose of the Tet Offensive? How could the U.S. have been more successful in fighting the Vietnam War? Bui Tin, a former colonel in the North Vietnamese army, answers these questions in the following excerpts from an interview conducted by Stephen Young, a Minnesota attorney and human-rights activist [in The Wall Street Journal, 3 August 1995]. Bui Tin, who served on the general staff of North Vietnam’s army, received the unconditional surrender of South Vietnam on April 30, 1975. He later became editor of the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of Vietnam. He now lives in Paris, where he immigrated after becoming disillusioned with the fruits of Vietnamese communism.
Question: How did Hanoi intend to defeat the Americans?
Answer: By fighting a long war which would break their will to help South Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh said,
“We don’t need to win military victories, we only need to hit them until they give up and get out.”
Q: Was the American antiwar movement important to Hanoi’s victory?
A: It was essential to our strategy. Support of the war from our rear was completely secure while the American rear was vulnerable. Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9 a.m. to follow the growth of the American antiwar movement. Visits to Hanoi by people like Jane Fonda, and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses. We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a red Vietnamese dress, said at a press conference that she was ashamed of American actions in the war and that she would struggle along with us.
Q: Did the Politburo pay attention to these visits?
A: Keenly.
Q: Why?
A: Those people represented the conscience of America. The conscience of America was part of its war-making capability, and we were turning that power in our favor. America lost because of its democracy; through dissent and protest it lost the ability to mobilize a will to win.
Q: How could the Americans have won the war?
A: Cut the Ho Chi Minh trail inside Laos. If Johnson had granted [Gen. William] Westmoreland’s requests to enter Laos and block the Ho Chi Minh trail, Hanoi could not have won the war.
Q: Anything else?
A: Train South Vietnam’s generals. The junior South Vietnamese officers were good, competent and courageous, but the commanding general officers were inept.
Q: Did Hanoi expect that the National Liberation Front would win power in South Vietnam?
A: No. Gen. [Vo Nguyen] Giap [commander of the North Vietnamese army] believed that guerrilla warfare was important but not sufficient for victory. Regular military divisions with artillery and armor would be needed. The Chinese believed in fighting only with guerrillas, but we had a different approach. The Chinese were reluctant to help us. Soviet aid made the war possible. Le Duan [secretary general of the Vietnamese Communist Party] once told Mao Tse-tung that if you help us, we are sure to win; if you don’t, we will still win, but we will have to sacrifice one or two million more soldiers to do so.
Q: Was the National Liberation Front an independent political movement of South Vietnamese?
A: No. It was set up by our Communist Party to implement a decision of the Third Party Congress of September 1960. We always said there was only one party, only one army in the war to liberate the South and unify the nation. At all times there was only one party commissar in command of the South.
Q: Why was the Ho Chi Minh trail so important?
A: It was the only way to bring sufficient military power to bear on the fighting in the South. Building and maintaining the trail was a huge effort, involving tens of thousands of soldiers, drivers, repair teams, medical stations, communication units.
Q: What of American bombing of the Ho Chi Minh trail?
A: Not very effective. Our operations were never compromised by attacks on the trail. At times, accurate B-52 strikes would cause real damage, but we put so much in at the top of the trail that enough men and weapons to prolong the war always came out the bottom. Bombing by smaller planes rarely hit significant targets.
Q: What of American bombing of North Vietnam?
A: If all the bombing had been concentrated at one time, it would have hurt our efforts. But the bombing was expanded in slow stages under Johnson and it didn’t worry us. We had plenty of times to prepare alternative routes and facilities. We always had stockpiles of rice ready to feed the people for months if a harvest were damaged. The Soviets bought rice from Thailand for us.
Q: What was the purpose of the 1968 Tet Offensive?
A: To relieve the pressure Gen. Westmoreland was putting on us in late 1966 and 1967 and to weaken American resolve during a presidential election year.
Q: What about Gen. Westmoreland’s strategy and tactics caused you concern?
A: Our senior commander in the South, Gen. Nguyen Chi Thanh, knew that we were losing base areas, control of the rural population and that his main forces were being pushed out to the borders of South Vietnam. He also worried that Westmoreland might receive permission to enter Laos and cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
In January 1967, after discussions with Le Duan, Thanh proposed the Tet Offensive. Thanh was the senior member of the Politburo in South Vietnam. He supervised the entire war effort. Thanh’s struggle philosophy was that “America is wealthy but not resolute,” and “squeeze tight to the American chest and attack.” He was invited up to Hanoi for further discussions. He went on commercial flights with a false passport from Cambodia to Hong Kong and then to Hanoi. Only in July was his plan adopted by the leadership. Then Johnson had rejected Westmoreland’s request for 200,000 more troops. We realized that America had made its maximum military commitment to the war. Vietnam was not sufficiently important for the United States to call up its reserves. We had stretched American power to a breaking point. When more frustration set in, all the Americans could do would be to withdraw; they had no more troops to send over.
Tet was designed to influence American public opinion. We would attack poorly defended parts of South Vietnam cities during a holiday and a truce when few South Vietnamese troops would be on duty. Before the main attack, we would entice American units to advance close to the borders, away from the cities. By attacking all South Vietnam’s major cities, we would spread out our forces and neutralize the impact of American firepower. Attacking on a broad front, we would lose some battles but win others. We used local forces nearby each target to frustrate discovery of our plans. Small teams, like the one which attacked the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, would be sufficient. It was a guerrilla strategy of hit-and-run raids. [lloks like a re-writing of history with the benefit of hindsight]
Q: What about the results?
A: Our losses were staggering and a complete surprise;. Giap later told me that Tet had been a military defeat, though we had gained the planned political advantages when Johnson agreed to negotiate and did not run for re-election. The second and third waves in May and September were, in retrospect, mistakes. Our forces in the South were nearly wiped out by all the fighting in 1968. It took us until 1971 to re-establish our presence, but we had to use North Vietnamese troops as local guerrillas. If the American forces had not begun to withdraw under Nixon in 1969, they could have punished us severely. We suffered badly in 1969 and 1970 as it was.
Q: What of Nixon?
A: Well, when Nixon stepped down because of Watergate we knew we would win. Pham Van Dong [prime minister of North Vietnam] said of Gerald Ford, the new president, “he’s the weakest president in U.S. history; the people didn’t elect him; even if you gave him candy, he doesn’t dare to intervene in Vietnam again.” We tested Ford’s resolve by attacking Phuoc Long in January 1975. When Ford kept American B-52’s in their hangers, our leadership decided on a big offensive against South Vietnam.
Q: What else?
A: We had the impression that American commanders had their hands tied by political factors. Your generals could never deploy a maximum force for greatest military effect.
24. capJ | April 1st, 2008 at 9:49 pm
Mark - you do realize what an emberessment this is to the US (unfortunately)? The Iraqi offensive to fight in Basra failed. Hundreds of lives were lost - and it was only via a deal brokered by the Iranians that al Sadr decided to order a cease fire. The US could do nothing and the Iranians and al Sadr proved yet again that they are the ones running the show..
It is like you think if you believe in something enough it will magically come true. Well - this isn’t wonderland - tinker bell
25. Diana Powe | April 1st, 2008 at 9:58 pm
Rich,
I’m sorry you embarrassed yourself by posting a long fake quote trying to “prove” the right-wing thesis that you were “stabbed in the back” in Vietnam, but you’re not helping yourself AND none of this has any relevance to Iraq today.
26. capJ | April 1st, 2008 at 10:03 pm
rich - just stop the bleeding and admit that you have been show up..
27. gaijin | April 1st, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Rich,
LMMFAO, Rich just got pwned by Diana. Thanks for posting lies. No wonder why you guys are so out of touch with reality. If it was just, “they only needed to persevere for one more hour, day, week, or month” in 1968, why didnt 7 more years of bombing crush their morale?
Man, that’s rich, Rich! I can send you a 6th grade text book if you like. The words are 16 point, so it shouldn’t take you that long to read it.
Peace, Gaijin
28. bongoman | April 1st, 2008 at 10:09 pm
My point is that Sadr is in many ways more of an Iraqi nationalist than al-Maliki.
The Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, which forms the cornerstone of al-Maliki’s government is closer to Iran than Sadr is.
There are observers who claim that Iran is in fact distrustful of the nationalist Sadr and is in fact more inclined to support the Badr brigades of the ISCI.
Remember that most Iraqi shiites are not in fact pro-Iranian and resist the Iranian religious leaders claims to vouch for Shiite communities outside of Iran.
29. capJ | April 1st, 2008 at 10:16 pm
wait - Mark - that is a “known lie” - so given your recent comments about comments I guess you should delete that huh - lets if you do..
30. Rich | April 1st, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Haha. I made mistake. Embarrassed? Hardly. I would be embarrassed If i was an American hating, terrorist sympathizer. Tokyo Rose’s own link had a different Vietnamese Colonel saying basically the same exact thing. Care to refute that? Care to explain why Bui Tin was quoting Giap in his interview? No you probably won’t comment on that. How about these quotes from Bui Tin that you ignored.
“[The American anti-war movement] was essential to our strategy. Support for the war from our rear was completely secure while the American rear was vulnerable. Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9 a.m. to follow the growth of the American antiwar movement. Visits to Hanoi by people like Jane Fonda and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses. We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a red Vietnamese dress, said at a press conference that she was ashamed of American actions in the war and that she would struggle along with us.”
“The conscience of America was part of its war-making capability, and we were turning that power in our favor. America lost because of its democracy; through dissent and protest it lost the ability to mobilize a will to win.”
Who is this Bui Tin-
http://www.americanthinker.com/2006/04/goodbye_saigon_goodbye_baghdad.html
“,he was the North Vietnamese Colonel who led the tank parade onto the grounds of the presidential palace to accept the unconditional surrender of South Vietnam’s last president, Gen. Duong Van “Big” Minh on April 30, 1975.
Much Like Tokyo Rose tries to turn victory into defeat today, the Jane Fonda’s of that era were doing the same thing. Please respond to Bui Tins words or as GayJim stated, consider yourself Pwned. P.S. GayJim-don’t bother sending me one of your sixth grade books, I don’t read farsi.
31. Freedom1 | April 2nd, 2008 at 12:45 am
Rich: “Wow I never thought I would see so many Mehdi army cheerleaders on this site. Guess we should rename it BlogsforMoqtada”.
Or we could just call them what they are…traitors.
Rich: “But seriously, every time the Mehdi Army is engaged in actually fighting, they totally get their butts handed to them…”
Yeah. Sadr’s a coward, safe in Iran and his forces get slaughtered by the Iraqis and the Americans. Heh.
The anti-war movement will never be able to wash the blood off of the 2 million people who were slaughtered because they forced the loss of the Vietnam War - a war in which the American military won every battle. The Vietnam anti-war protestors are traitorous scum who are party to mass murder. Sick and disgusting people.
32. Diana Powe | April 2nd, 2008 at 1:16 am
Since you’re the one who is so filled with trembling anxiety about the fact that I dared point out how fringe this tough-guy rhetoric about the recent fighting in Basra is to the point that it causes you to label me, sans-evidence, as an “American hating, terrorist sympathizer”, I might ask why we should accept the views of a Vietnamese dissident who doesn’t live in Vietnam anymore over the man who was the overall commander of the forces that overcame the French and American forces in that country? If Bui Tin’s views were so indisputable why would anyone bother to fake up the Giap quotation? Regardless, your digression into old right-wing paranoia about Vietnam STILL has zero to do with how Iraqis decide to vote in their local elections in six months which is what Premier al-Maliki’s gamble in Basra was all about. Beat your chest all you want, but you still don’t know anything about that and that’s the real issue. In six months, al-Maliki may not even be prime minister of Iraq anymore.
33. Freedom1 | April 2nd, 2008 at 1:33 am
“In six months, al-Maliki may not even be prime minister of Iraq anymore.” DP
That’s great! That’s called DEMOCRACY. Maybe the Iraqis will vote in someone better.
34. Rich | April 2nd, 2008 at 1:48 am
“I might ask why we should accept the views of a Vietnamese dissident who doesn’t live in Vietnam anymore over the man who was the overall commander of the forces that overcame the French and American forces in that country?”
Well for starters, I got this guys info from YOUR link that YOU provided, and he was listed as a legitimate source in said article. As far as being an American hating terrorist sympathizer, the proof is in the pudding. Cheering for the other side to score political points in a time of war will get you that label. That is exactly what you do on this site when you try and put Moqtada Al- Sadr up to be the next coming of George Washington, and when you try and paint our military victories as defeats. The mehdi army has been targeting U.S. troops, so they are legitimate targets. If that coincides with Maliki’s political goals, does it really matter? Are you saying the Mehdi army should not be targeted and should get a free pass for firing mortars into the green zone? Furthermore, if the Iraqi’s want to vote Sadr’s people into office then they will have to deal with the consequences. Voting for Hamas really hooked the Palestinians up with a better life didn’t it?
35. Steve J. | April 2nd, 2008 at 3:46 am
Sadr’s forces still control most of Basra.
36. Steve J. | April 2nd, 2008 at 3:47 am
they really think that Sadr’s rabble can stand up to the Iraqi military.
They are correct. The Iraq military sucks.
37. Steve J. | April 2nd, 2008 at 3:57 am
RICH -
“We of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations who participated in the decisions on Vietnam acted according to what we thought were the principles and traditions of this nation. We made our decisions in light of those values. Yet we were wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why.”
Robert S.McNamara,
IN RETROSPECT:THE TRAGEDY AND LESSONS OF VIETNAM
by ROBERT S. MCNAMARA WITH BRIAN VANDEMARK
38. InDaVa | April 2nd, 2008 at 9:47 am
Rich is waaaaay off topic yet his posts remain. He has also stated some falsehoods which he refuses to correct and yet his post remains. New comment policy? Pfffffft……sure it is.
39. flexible repair&hellip | April 12th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
flexible repair
In 1964, it released a gastrocamera guided by a fiberscope. Polypectomy has since become the most common therapeutic procedure performed
40. Panic Attacks, First-aid&hellip | April 13th, 2008 at 12:26 am
Panic Attacks, First-aid
Thanks for this post!
41. foto gay orgias&hellip | April 21st, 2008 at 9:32 am
cazzo gay
free gay hairy picture
42. dorms&hellip | April 23rd, 2008 at 2:08 pm
rgr4t
classic scorched earth
Leave a Comment
Please report any inappropriate or abusive comments to abuse@blogsforvictory.com. Please include the blog entry title and the comment number.
Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed