Friday, July 15, 2005

About Last Night: Another Great Newshour Interview...

Last night Ray Suarez took on General John Vines, who actually admitted that he plans to lose the Iraq war.

Here is his surrender declaration:
So the idea that we are going to win an insurgency, we are going to defeat the insurgency, the coalition, and then give freedom to the Iraqi people does not track. Freedom can't be given to someone; it must be taken, and so they have to take that.

"This man is a complete idiot," the person sitting next to me turned and said. I agree. And kudos to Jim Lehrer and Ray Suarez for smoking him out of his cave, so the American people can see what is going on with our military leadership.

For those who don't know American history, we can start at the beginning: The French military, under General Rochambeau, presented freedom as a gift to George Washington in the American Revolution--General Cornwallis originally wanted to present his sword to the French, whose fleet and armies defeated him at Yorktown. We Americans couldn't "take" freedom without the French.

Abraham Lincoln presented freedom to the slaves in the Civil War. Slaves couldn't "take it" without the Union Army.

In more recent times, America (with a great deal of help from the USSR and Great Britain) presented freedom as a gift to Germany, Japan, Italy and the nations of Western Europe. They didn't "take it," either.

So why expect from the Iraqis what we didn't expect from ourselves or others?

Unless and until the enemy is decisively defeated, the Iraqi people will not enjoy freedom. As FDR noted, one of the most important freedoms is "Freedom from Fear."

For without civil order--while chaos, anarchy, and violence reign--democracy is impossible.