---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 05 Feb 2003 11:57:32 -0800
From: radtimes <resist@best.com>
Subject: Aid and Comfort To The Enemy
Aid and Comfort To The Enemy
<http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=5956>
By Paul Davis
FrontPageMagazine.com | February 5, 2003
The January 18th anti-war demonstrations in Washington, San Francisco and
other
cities were the lead news story around the world. As we prepare for the
possibility of
war with Iraq, my thoughts return to an earlier war and earlier anti-war
movement.
I enlisted in the U.S. Navy when I was 17 in 1970 and served on an aircraft
carrier during
the Vietnam War. I vividly recall the media coverage of protesters burning
the American
Flag and calling for an immediate withdraw from Vietnam. These images were
demoralizing to the U.S. troops and encouraging to the communists.
The USS Kitty Hawk performed combat operations on "Yankee Station" off the
coast of
Vietnam in 1970 and 1971. The carrier's 90 aircraft dropped a record
tonnage of ordnance
on North Vietnamese and Viet Cong positions and supply routes in support of
the U.S.
ground troops.
Air combat operations are fast-paced and precarious as the carrier launches and
recovers aircraft around the clock. With vast amounts of jet fuel and
munitions aboard,
an accident or fire aboard a carrier can be a truly deadly affair. Although
we put in long,
hard and dangerous hours, we knew our constant pounding of the communists
kept our
soldier-brothers "in-country" alive.
I remember when Admiral John S. McCain, the Commander in Chief of U.S.
Forces in the
Pacific, flew aboard the carrier. The short, gruff, cigar-munching four
star admiral
appeared on the warship's close circuit television and in salty language
informed us that
although there were thousands of people back home protesting the Vietnam
War, he
believed the great majority of Americans supported us. He added that the
protesters
were undermining our efforts and belittling our sacrifices.
The admiral knew something about sacrifices, as his son, Navy pilot John
McCain, the
future senator, was at that moment a prisoner of war in Hanoi.
"The protesters back home say make love not war," he told the warship's
5,500 men. "I
say if you're man enough, you can do both."
Although we never lost a battle over company strength during our entire
time in
Vietnam, and there were no American combat troops (only support personnel)
in South
Vietnam when the country fell to the communists in 1975, a common
misconception is
that we were defeated militarily.
The North Vietnamese defeated the South Vietnamese on the battlefield, not
the U.S.
The communists correctly estimated that the U.S. would not return combat
troops to
save South Vietnam.
The U.S. military objective was never to militarily defeat the North
Vietnamese. Instead,
our goal was to hold the line fighting under severely limited rules of
engagement.
Everyone in the military, even a teenage sailor and aspiring writer from south
Philadelphia, knew the policy was senseless and doomed to fail.
Fighting in half measures enabled the communists to hang on despite losing
every battle
and enduring an incredibly heavy loss of life. They also patiently held out
due to the
highly publicized peace movement, which sent a clear message to the
communists that
the U.S. was divided on the war and that our leaders lacked the political
will to decisively
win the war through military means.
According to Cartha D. DeLoach, a former deputy director of the FBI, the
Students for a
Democratic Society (SDS) sponsored many of the antiwar protests and
instigated much
of the campus violence during the Vietnam War. DeLoach wrote in his book,
"Hoover's
FBI: The Inside Story by Hoover's Trusted Lieutenant," that SDS made no
bones about
their intentions to tear the country apart.
Deloach also writes in his book that Stanley Levison, a known member of the
American
Communist Party, was a member of Martin Luther King's inner circle of
advisors. He
wrote a number of King's speeches and DeLoach speculates that Levison's
communist
influence may well have persuaded King to become an antiwar activist.
The antiwar movement only served to inspire the communists to go on
fighting and
killing Americans and the South Vietnamese. The visits to North Vietnam by
actress and
antiwar activist "Hanoi Jane" Fonda, Ramsey Clark and others only served to
encourage
the communists to continue to imprison, beat and starve our prisoners of war.
The antiwar movement also inspired the poor homecoming response that many
Vietnam
War veterans received when they returned to "the world," which was what the
troops
called America during the conflict. Accusations of murdering women and
babies were
viciously hurled at a good many soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen. Many
veterans
didn't talk about the war for years, for fear of being socially ostracized.
Retired Army Lt. General Philip B. Davidson, who served as the chief
intelligence officer
(J-2) for both of the U.S. military commanders in Vietnam, General
Westmoreland and
General Abrams, noted in his book "Vietnam at War," that the U.S. peace
movement was
useful to the communists.
Davidson wrote that it was apparent to Ho Chi Minh and General Giap that
the United
States would not pursue the war to a military victory.
"They discovered that the American people were extremely vulnerable to
their dich van
program (action among the enemy people) for in 1968 another, and increasingly
powerful, front had been opened in the war antiwar dissent within the
United States,"
wrote Davidson.
He went on to state that in 1969, presidential decisions were made
increasingly with one
eye on Vietnam and one eye on the antiwar movement.
The anti-war movement of the 1960s and 70s would later see one of their own
rise to
become President. Bill Clinton publicly led marches against the war while a
student at
Oxford University in the United Kingdom. In another age, this would have been
considered treason.
The man who feigned an interest in the Army Reserve to avoid being drafted
and would
later state that he "loathed" the military (when he no longer needed the
reserve slot to
avoid serving in Vietnam) would go on to become the Commander-in-Chief of
the U.S.
Armed Forces.
From the safety of the White House, the former anti-war protester played
soldier and
often committed combat troops during his administration. (I used to laugh
when Clinton
gave the Marine guard a snappy salute as he boarded the presidential
helicopter).
Although the media claim that today's protesters are a more diverse lot
than the Vietnam
Era protesters, it seems to me that at the core are the usual subversive
suspects: radical
students and communists.
As fully documented here in FrontPageMagazine, the key organizers of the
antiwar
protests are a Marxist group called A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now To Stop War & End
Racism).
A.N.S.W.E.R. and other peace activists were at work as quickly as September
12th,
urging "restraint" and voicing their opposition to any military retaliation
for the
September 11th terrorist attacks. Had we listened to them, we would not
have disrupted
the terrorist network in Afghanistan and other countries around the world.
Had we not
retaliated, I'm certain that the terrorists would have rocked us with
another horrific act of
terrorism.
Saddam Hussein, like the Vietnamese communists, views the peace activists
as allies.
The peace activists, past and present, overlook any atrocities committed by
the likes of
the Viet Cong, terrorists and tin pot dictators. They are equally adept in
justifying any
enemy action by laying the blame squarely back on America. "My country; always
wrong" could be the self-loathing, anti-American answer to "My country;
right or
wrong."
The lessons of Vietnam enabled our future military engagements in the Gulf
War and
Afghanistan to be much more successful. If we do go to war with Iraq,
hopefully we'll
do so with a full commitment to win militarily, as we did in Afghanistan.
If we commit to war, our showing in Iraq will illustrate once again just
how formidable a
foe a united America can be. The direct and indirect state sponsors of
terrorism will
surely get the message.
The buzzing of peace activists will not deter us in this war, I believe,
because they
represent a fringe minority view. They are out of touch with most Americans
who fully
support the war on terrorism and will come to support military action
against Iraq should
we go there.
The demonstrators have, like the Vietnam War protestors, given aid and
comfort to
Saddam Hussein and the terrorists. While the U.S. and U.K. military build
up near Iraq is
sending one very clear message lose the weapons of mass destruction or
face this
formidable military force the demonstrators are sending an equally clear
(to them)
message that we lack the political strength and will to carry through with
our military
threat.
The great irony of the anti-war movement is they would surely not be
tolerated in the
very countries they try to protect. Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea
and China
would simply crack them over the head or shoot them the minute they hit the
street in
protest.
The peace activists have the freedom and right to protest against U.S.
military action
precisely because the U.S. military they so hate has successfully fought
tyrants and evil
empires throughout our history.
The fight, I would like to remind the peace activists, was not without cost.
..
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