"This is worse than Saigon"

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Monday, August 16. 2021

"This is worse than Saigon"

America’s humiliation in Afghanistan confirms that the woke West is utterly incapable of standing up for itself.

Read it all. An excerpt:

The West’s post-9/11 bluster was continually undermined by the West’s broader descent into moral relativism. How can you assert the civilisational authority of Western values when your entire educational and university system is devoted to questioning and demeaning Western civilisation? You cannot partake in a clash of civilisations if you loathe your own civilisation.

Anyone who thinks the Taliban did not pick up on all of this, on the Potemkin nature not only of the Afghan government but also of Western civilisation itself, is kidding themselves.

Posted by Bruce Kesler at 19:06 | Comments (28) | Trackbacks (0)

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He’s right on all counts, but many of the people who need to absorb this lesson are least open to evidence or argument of any kind.

That’s ultimately the biggest problem with “wokeness” — it’s a self-reinforcing belief system that created new words and redefined old ones, and is therefore not open to reason or argumentation. It’s like The Enlightenment got reversed.

Let us hope that at least some of the casually and trendy woke will WTFU and reverse course.

#1 Jeff Brokaw (Link) on 2021-08-16 19:49 (Reply)

This isn't Saigon. This is Phnom Penh.

#2 Jim on 2021-08-16 20:40 (Reply)

"You cannot partake in a clash of civilisations if you loathe your own civilisation."

Perhaps that's the point.

#3 Michael R. Kesti on 2021-08-16 22:37 (Reply)

That was a very good read Bruce. Thank you.

Some thoughts.

I believe the author to be spot on about the cultural rot and the damage incurred on our foreign relations.

In my view it was easy to see that the Taliban would return to power 20 years ago. Pushing them out of Afghanistan was akin to sweeping water.

"Nation Building" had already failed in Somalia, so our ruling masters decided it would be a good idea to try it again in Afghanistan and Iraq. The arrogance, incompetence, ignorance, and cluelessness in our military, state department, and intelligence services is mind boggling. And no one will be held accountable. The money and human lives wasted, or ruined . . . . The people at the top don't care. Their lives are good. The damage inflicted on America by our elected officials and so-called experts was criminal.

Afghanistan is a sterling example of why I have evolved into an isolationist and would prefer we avoid interventions like this. We are incapable of bringing them to a successful conclusion if for no other reason than the stark differences in world views of our two political parties.

After the debacle in Afghanistan, if I were one of America's allies in the western Pacific or East Asia, I would be increasingly worried about America's resolve in opposing the Chinese. In that part of the world I think it is going to be every man (nation) for himself. Joe and his puppeteers aren't up to the task.

We may or may not be a paper tiger, but the optics sure look bad today.

#4 feeblemind on 2021-08-16 23:34 (Reply)

Ditto here on transition to isolationist.

Far too many establishment DC politicians and Pentagon REMFs using young people’s lives for self-advancement: as cannon fodder and then again crying over even the smallest casualty numbers, as if it’s possible to do anything meaningful without some small measure of risk.

The problem is here at home, not on the front lines.

#4.1 Jeff Brokaw (Link) on 2021-08-17 09:02 (Reply)

But, but... All those soldiers were defending our freedom. Gave their lives. Were maimed. Went crazy. While the Washington establishment lived high on the hog off their sacrifice. What a waste. Disgusting!

#5 Stargazer on 2021-08-17 08:13 (Reply)

QUOTE:

"This is worse than Saigon"

The U.S. propped up a corrupt government that didn't have the support of the people it presided over. Everything the Americans spent, half went to corrupt officials and half went to the insurgents; so the more the Americans spent, the stronger the enemy became.

At the end, the money went out, but the Afghan army wasn't even getting paid. Meanwhile, the Taliban made deals with officials at all levels of the government, including in the military. When the moment came, there was no Afghan government and no Afghan army.

There was never any there there. The U.S. should never have stayed in Afghanistan, where they were seen as foreign occupiers, redcoats trying to control committed militants who could live and fight in the wilderness.

QUOTE:

But you, o humans, o human things—when a man is happy, a shadow could overturn it. When life goes wrong, a wet sponge erases the whole picture. You, you, I pity.

– Cassandra

#6 Zachriel on 2021-08-17 10:14 (Reply)

Ah yes, the talking points are out. Spin, deflect, gaslight.

QUOTE:

Here’s what Leon Panetta, who served as secretary of defense from 2011 to 2013, has to say to the Washington Post about Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal:

“He didn’t really spend much time on the issue that I think really concerns the American people, which is the execution of that decision. What went wrong and how it is going to be fixed?” said Leon Panetta, a longtime adviser to Democratic presidents who served as defense secretary under President Barack Obama. “It just struck me that they were crossing their fingers and hoping chaos would not result. And it doesn’t work that way.”

Panetta, who said he has been unsure what to tell the numerous contacts in Afghanistan calling him seeking a way out of the country, said, “right now it just does not look like we have our act together” and expressed surprise at the seeming lack of preparation.

QUOTE:

During an interview with Bloomberg News' Balance of Power show, Ryan Crocker, the former ambassador to Afghanistan in the Obama administration, said that President Joe Biden embraced the Afghanistan-exit "process" started by President Donald Trump and that Biden now "owns it lock, stock, and barrel."

"It is beyond disingenuous for the president to say now we've made all these inputs and it is up to them to fight for their own country when he [President Biden] embraced the process and he owns it lock, stock, and barrel, President Trump's process, guaranteeing that the government would probably not survive," said Amb. Crocker on the Aug. 11 Balance of Power, hosted by David Westin.

#6.1 Christopher B on 2021-08-17 11:13 (Reply)

Christopher B: Spin, deflect, gaslight.

Not sure why you think it is spin. Panetta says that Biden apparently didn't properly account for the worst-case scenario. Crocker says that Biden, by accepting the Trump withdrawal plan, owns it. In any case, collapse of the Afghan government was the inevitable result of American withdrawal, whether ten years ago or ten years from now.

Americans have a great deal of trouble recognizing the truth of their own limitations. By refusing the acknowledge that the regime was fatally corrupt meant that collapse was inevitable once the Americans withdrew. If it is anything like Vietnam, they will blame the hippies.

#6.1.1 Zachriel on 2021-08-17 12:32 (Reply)

There seems to be at least a three-way fight amongst the State Department, the woke military, and the woke intelligence community over who should be blamed for their mutual complete failure.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/17/politics/biden-afghanistan-blame-shifting/index.html

We don't want to blame Joey for his absence of leadership though.

#6.1.1.1 Zachinoff on 2021-08-17 16:00 (Reply)

Why do I care about Afghanistan?

This was more neo-con folly. Nation building? That's not America's role.

#7 DrTorch (Link) on 2021-08-17 10:38 (Reply)

QUOTE:

The author's claim is not supported by his argument. He could have wrote the same screed in the 1960s about Vietnam, the hippies and the peaceniks. The fact is that the U.S. couldn't win militarily in Vietnam or in Afghanistan because they were seen as foreign occupiers by most of the people there, and any government, army and institutions they supported were seen as puppets of a foreigner power.

Afghanistan has changed though. The long American involvement will leave cultural vestiges, just as it did in Vietnam.

#8 Zachriel on 2021-08-17 10:43 (Reply)

Your claim (one often seen coming from HS juniors) is not supported by your drivel. Nor is it supported by 40 years of historical analysis.

Perpetually wrong. You are tiresome.

#8.1 DrTorch (Link) on 2021-08-17 10:45 (Reply)

DrTorch: Your claim (one often seen coming from HS juniors) is not supported by your drivel.

DrTorch argues: Is not! And you're stupid!

(If you really want to make an actual argument, you would wield that 40 years of historical analysis to make the argument rather than just waving your hands in the general direction.)

#8.1.1 Zachriel on 2021-08-17 11:08 (Reply)

The burden is not on me to provide evidence to counter your unfounded claims.

Furthermore, you have a track record of ignoring sound evidence, and my time has value.

You are a liar. A known liar. And pointing that out is all that I need to say.

#8.1.1.1 DrTorch (Link) on 2021-08-17 13:56 (Reply)

Typical comeback tactic from the KiddieZ.

They're been posting the same nonsense over at the PiratesCove.Us since yesterday.

Didn't work there either.

#8.1.1.1.1 Zachinoff on 2021-08-17 15:43 (Reply)

DrTorch: The burden is not on me to provide evidence to counter your unfounded claims.

The claim is "This is worse than Saigon," but every example O'Neill provides of how the fall of Kabul is worse could just as easily apply to the fall of Saigon.

QUOTE:

"The allies of the most technologically sophisticated army in the world have been sent packing by a ragtag communist army."

"Which nation or people in need of help would align with this supposedly freedom-loving superpower that abandons its allies to their fate when the communist enemy comes knocking?"

"Who now will trust the US to assist in the building of new institutions given the rotten fruits of its multi-billion-dollar ‘nation-building’ project in Vietnam."

"This geopolitical disaster for the US will also strengthen the hand of its opponents, most notably Communist China."

"This might just be the most important factor in the Vietnamese humiliation – the fact that the US, and the West more broadly, clearly lacks the cultural resources necessary for a clash of civilisations."

Keep in mind that during the Vietnam War, the U.S. was rent by cultural upheaval, with American institutions called into question by deception and hypocrisy at every level of society. Perhaps the fall of Kabul is worse than the fall of Saigon—time will tell—but O'Neill does not carry the weight of his argument.

#8.1.1.1.2 Zachriel on 2021-08-17 16:45 (Reply)

Yours is the PBS version of Viet Nam and not the one that most of us who fought there lived. You have no experience in such places but you do have a lot of opinions. You remind me of the kid cabinet in Johnsons term. They knew everything but had no real world experience either and then the Democrats cut off the funding and left them to hang. That was pure evil.

#8.1.1.1.2.1 indyjonesouthere on 2021-08-17 23:03 (Reply)

indyjonesouthere: the Democrats cut off the funding

Except that's not true.

QUOTE:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 8—Administration officials said today that President Ford had decided to ask Congress for at least $300‐million in military aid for South Vietnam in the current fiscal year in addition to $700million already appropriated.
https://www.nytimes.com/1975/01/09/archives/ford-said-to-seek-extra-saigon-aid-16billion-in-new-military-help.html

In any case, that doesn't respond to the points raised about O'Neill's argument.

#8.1.1.1.2.1.1 Zachriel on 2021-08-18 08:52 (Reply)

indyjonesouthere: the Democrats cut off the funding

Except that's not true.

Wrong. They slashed funding under Nixon and refused $300 million requested by Ford.

Senator Joe Biden in April of '75 on Ford's request for the $300 mil to help evacuate US allies in South Vietnam: “I do not believe the United States has an obligation, moral or otherwise, to evacuate foreign nationals...The United States has no obligation to evacuate one, or 100,001, South Vietnamese.”

Saigon fell days later.

"In any case, that doesn't respond to the points raised about O'Neill's argument."

You didn't make any "points" about O'Neill's argument or refute anything he said other than to give your opinion. You merely quoted from the argument and said you disagreed with the conclusions. He responded to your position in the same way you responded to O'Neill's.

#8.1.1.1.2.1.1.1 Truth on 2021-08-18 10:27 (Reply)

Truth: They slashed funding under Nixon and refused $300 million requested by Ford.

Except that wasn't the claim, which was that they cut off funding. That was not correct. Nor would Ford's request have made a difference, as Saigon fell in April. The fact is that "the tide of history" was against any outside regime picking winners and losers in a Vietnamese civil war. To win their independence, the Vietnamese beat back the Japanese, the French, the Americans, and then the Chinese.

QUOTE:

Vietnamese Declaration of Independence: All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

This immortal statement was made in the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in 1776. In a broader sense, this means: All the peoples on the earth are equal from birth, all the peoples have a right to live, to be happy and free.

The Declaration of the French Revolution made in 1791 on the Rights of Man and the Citizen also states: “All men are born free and with equal rights, and must always remain free and have equal rights.”

Those are undeniable truths.

Nevertheless, for more than eighty years, the French imperialists, abusing the standard of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, have violated our Fatherland and oppressed our fellow-citizens. They have acted contrary to the ideals of humanity and justice.

Then there's this:

QUOTE:

Eisenhower: I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indochinese affairs who did not agree that had elections been held as of the time of the fighting, possibly 80 per cent of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader rather than Chief of State Bao Dai. Indeed, the lack of leadership and drive on the part of Bao Dai was a factor in the feeling prevalent among Vietnamese that they had nothing to fight for.

Truth: You didn't make any "points" about O'Neill's argument or refute anything he said other than to give your opinion.

Indeed, we did. O'Neill raised points he considered distinguishing, but when you actually look at those points, you can substitute Vietnam for Afghanistan or Saigon for Kabul and be just as correct, as we showed. Or are you saying that the U.S. was not "the most technologically sophisticated army in the world"? In order to contest our points, you have to actually address our points.

#8.1.1.1.2.1.1.1.1 Zachriel on 2021-08-18 10:58 (Reply)

"Except that wasn't the claim, which was that they cut off funding. That was not correct. Nor would Ford's request have made a difference, as Saigon fell in April. The fact is that "the tide of history" was against any outside regime picking winners and losers in a Vietnamese civil war. To win their independence, the Vietnamese beat back the Japanese, the French, the Americans, and then the Chinese."

Funding was cut off in 1975, voted down by among others Joe Biden. A week later Saigon fell. Those are facts, not opinion.

Your argument--including "the tide of history", is based on opinion, not fact, just as O'Neill's was an opinion piece. And yet you demand a rebuttal made on facts to the opinion you posit without them. Those tactics that wouldn't be tolerated in a Middle School debate competition.

Stop playing rhetorical games. It's childish.

#8.1.1.1.2.1.1.1.1.1 Truth on 2021-08-18 11:20 (Reply)

Truth: Funding was cut off in 1975, voted down by among others Joe Biden. A week later Saigon fell.

As already noted, military funding was allocated for the fiscal year ending July 1, 1975. The original claim was wrong.

You should try to be specific.^ You are probably referring to the Vietnam Humanitarian Assistance and Evacuation Act of 1975. Additional funding was not approved by Congress as it included provisions to use the military and possibly draw the U.S. back into the conflict.

-
^ Note we provided contemporary reports of military funding for the fiscal year ending 1975; specific quotations from O'Neill with substitutions in support of our position; the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence of 1945 showing the desire of the Vietnamese people to be free of foreign interference; a quote from Eisenhower indicating the wide support for Ho Chi Minh; a transcript of Nixon and Kissinger showing they knew the war was lost, but continued the war for political purposes; and a suggestion of which legislation to which you were referring and the disposition of that legislation.

#8.1.1.1.2.1.1.1.1.1.1 Zachriel on 2021-08-18 12:40 (Reply)

The contemporary report you provided was regarding the Ford request that was denied--denial of the funding is what the discussion is about. The $700 million was half of what was asked for and has nothing to to with the 300--it was already a done deal. Your contention that the 300 mil was not passed because of fear that it would be used for military purposes is your opinion and it's countered by what Biden and others said at the time.

What DDE or Nixon/Kissinger said is also irrelevant to the discussion at hand which is the damage caused by Saigon vs. Kabul. You're introducing things into the debate that have nothing to do with the argument. Which seems to be your favorite tactic.

#8.1.1.1.2.1.1.1.1.1.1.1 Truth on 2021-08-18 15:01 (Reply)

Truth: The $700 million was half of what was asked for

So the funding wasn't cut off, but reduced for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1975.

Truth: Your contention that the 300 mil was not passed because of fear that it would be used for military purposes is your opinion

It would help with your own understanding if you were as specific as possible. You talked about funding which was "cut off" a week before Saigon fell. The closest approximation would be the Vietnam Humanitarian Assistance and Evacuation Act of 1975, which was voted down just after the fall of Saigon. It wasn't direct military assistance, but allowed the use of the U.S. armed forces to help evacuate refugees. The $300 million was requested by Ford in January, and was an additional appropriation on top of the $700 million already budgeted for fiscal year ending 1975. The original appropriation was never cut off.

Truth: What DDE or Nixon/Kissinger said is also irrelevant to the discussion at hand which is the damage caused by Saigon vs. Kabul.

Yet, you listen to the Nixonian spin that it was Congress that doomed Vietnam by falsely claiming Congress cut off funding, when the war had already been lost years earlier, was probably always doomed—and Nixon knew it. The Vietnamese people were never going to accept a corrupt government installed by foreign powers, not after having fought Japan in WWII, then the French with American help trying to keep the Vietnamese colonized.

#8.1.1.1.2.1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1 Zachriel on 2021-08-18 15:43 (Reply)

Actually, as the Nixon tapes reveal, Nixon and Kissinger had determined that the South could not survive, but continued to war for political purposes.

QUOTE:

Nixon: because I look at the tide of history out there, South Vietnam probably can never even survive anyway…

Nixon: It’s terribly important this year, but can we have a viable foreign policy if a year from now or two years from now, North Vietnam gobbles up South Vietnam? That’s the real question.

Kissinger: If a year or two years from now North Vietnam gobbles up South Vietnam, we can have a viable foreign policy if it looks as if it’s the result of South Vietnamese incompetence. If we now sell out in such a way that, say, within a three- to four-month period, we have pushed {unclear} Thieu over the brink– we ourselves– I think, there is going to be– even the Chinese won’t like that. I mean, they’ll pay verbal– verbally, they’ll like it–

Nixon: But it’ll worry them.

Kissinger: But it will worry everybody. And domestically in the long run it won’t help us all that much because our opponents will say we should’ve done it three years ago.

Nixon: I know.

The problem was one of corruption. Every other bullet the Americans sent to Vietnam went to the communists. More bullets meant more killing, but brought the war no closer to a successful conclusion.

Sound familiar? When is the best time to plant a tree? Years ago. When is the next best time? Now.

#8.1.1.1.2.1.2 Zachriel on 2021-08-18 09:21 (Reply)

Z: Afghanistan has changed though. The long American involvement will leave cultural vestiges, just as it did in Vietnam.

https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/2021/08/19

#8.2 Zachriel on 2021-08-24 10:13 (Reply)

Due to the huge inflation of the early '70s and the curtailment of logistics, supplies and armaments and fuel from the US, and the US Congress banning air support, the South Vietnamese army hadn't enough air, supplies or bullets to resist the 1975 tank invasion( which without those limitations, it had in the 1972 Easter invasion by the North). Indeed, by the summer of 1971 we and the South Vietnamese had virtually won, a nd I traveled throughout the South as a civilian safely sleeping in the villes at night without armed protection (I had a derringer). Yes there was corruption, as one finds almost everywhere but, as in Korea with ongoing US keeping its support up, South Vietnam would likely have survived and strengthened. In Afghanistan, the withdrawal of the several thousand US and contractor support elements, signaled defeatism to Afghans, crippled its US-NATO modeled and supply and support needy armed forces, and the latest doom occurred. Many Afghanis will regroup and fight, and unlike before when we supplied the previous retaking by Afghanis from the Taliban, it is more doubtful Afghanis will avoid the harsh rule and tortures and subjugation of women.

#9 Bruce Kesler on 2021-08-18 15:58 (Reply)

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Monday, August 16. 2021

"This is worse than Saigon"