Editorial

A bad dream returns

Shades of Vietnam, Korea and . . .

How many times by now has our president and alleged commander-in-chief of the armed forces declared victory in the war against the Islamic State in the Middle East? About as many times as he's had to undeclare it and call for still more American troops that this time, honest, will be enough to assure victory and peace everlasting?

Shades of Vietnam, where the number of American fighting men--and women--needed to assure victory and peace everlasting there kept increasing even as Lyndon Johnson kept assuring us this would be the last troop increase he and General Westmoreland would require. Before it became clear that all they'd assured was defeat.

This country wound up having to airlift innocent Vietnamese civilians, friends and allies off the roof of the American embassy there. Talk about an ignominious end to a war that was anything but splendid in the first place. Only the terrorists now are called the Islamic State instead of the Vietcong. Little has changed except the names and places where so much blood was spilled, so many lives lost, so many dreams slain.

The roster of American victories may be long and proud, but the list of our defeats is long too, and tragic. It's the same old story, and this one may have much the same disgraceful ending. Which is the sure result when a president and alleged commander-in-chief has no long-term strategy but just makes it up as he goes along. And so proceeds crisis to crisis, defeat to defeat, ignominy to ignominy.

We can't say we haven't been warned, but who ever listens to Cassandra? Indeed, that is the essence of the tragedy she prophesied--not that she was wrong but that no one believed her till it was too late.

To cite Lyndon Johnson, or rather Barack Obama, for they tend to merge in memory's hazy eye, "Make no mistake. These terrorists will learn the same lessons as others before them have, which is, your hatred is no match for our nations united in defense of our way of life." Or is the lesson that the United States of ever dithering America can't be trusted to stick to a consistent foreign policy? Not in war or peace or that twilight zone between them. Empty rhetoric has never been an adequate substitute for simple steadfastness and never will be.

How long were American troops stationed in both Europe and Asia during the Cold War? Decades, at least. They carried out their mission faithfully, even as the Cold War turned hot in Korea and Vietnam. "I'll be honest," says our current president, which would be a nice change. "Sometimes Europe has been complacent about its own defense." As if his administration hasn't been as it cuts defense budgets time and again, claiming to be leading from behind when it's not leading at all.

Let's hear from John McCain, one United States senator who has been consistently right about American foreign policy along with his faithful sidekick Lindsey Graham. The president's latest twist-and-halfway turn, he warns, is a welcome development, "but one that has been long overdue and ultimately insufficient . . ." Just like the rest of this administration's foreign policy. For this president specializes in the short haul, and even then his route keeps changing.

The one thing neither this country nor this world needs is a vacillating, indecisive America that doesn't know its own mind, let alone its enemy's. The result is that we have enemies galore. It's a sad sight, this repeat and re-repeat of some of history's saddest lessons. Only the presidents seem to have changed. Experience is a dear school, as has been said, but fools will learn in no other.

What a sad progression from Lyndon Johnson to Barack Obama with nary an Eisenhower nor Reagan in sight. Restore our old greatness, the Trumpians cry. But would either they or the Obamaniks recognize greatness in American foreign policy even if it were to appear? Peace through strength? Instead we get a simulacrum or "peace" through a constantly changing foreign policy, and the more times this current president changes course still again, the more unbelievable he becomes. Till finally he succeeds at doing nothing, nothing at all but confusing all of us.

It was an American general who warned that in war there is no substitute for victory. Nor is there in peace, or what's supposed to pass for it in these ever confusing times.

Editorial on 05/01/2016

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