How to Lose a War

Well we know how to do that. Listen to the mainstream media. When we do that we'll be convinced, as the aim must be from the Ministry of Truth, that our victories are losses and our successful tactics are failures. Yes, Vietnam, again.

All the history you know about that war came from leftists writing in the '70s and '80s. Time has been caught in amber, and such truth does not flow. Right? The hippies are old men now, and many of them don't even wear ponytails. They have become the Man. Up with the Establishment, since it's them -- although America is still bad. Point being, they are as out-of-date as that guacamole in your fridge that used to be yogurt.

Y'see, we have access now to the archives of Moscow and Hanoi. We know the distress that they felt over the victories that our trusted mavens told us were defeats. We can see the encouragement they took from our noble Congress, which did the enemy the great courtesy of informing them of our intentions to betray our treaty commitments. Thus, the Second Supplemental Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 1973 broadcast to the enemy our refusal to provide any funds that would "support directly or indirectly combat activities in or over Cambodia, Laos, North Vietnam or South Vietnam." And then there was the Continuing Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 1974, and the Foreign Assistance Act of 1973, which forbade third-party countries that accepted US aid from assisting the South Vietnamese. Because it's really important, when you plan your back-stabbings, to make a thorough job of it. No Good Samaritans allowed.

Maybe you thought the enemy can't read English? They could. They can. We printed up the menu, and we took their orders. Where the dead bodies are, there the vultures gather. Dig in, boys. There are lots of abandoned allies we can serve up.

A significant percentage of Americans hate presidents who wage strategic wars. Truman with Korea left office with an abysmal approval rating. Johnson with Vietnam did not choose to run again. Nixon was driven from office. Bush, with this hopelessly endless quagmire of another hopeless defeat and hopelessly bad awfullness and stuff -- I'm forgetting the exact words the left uses. Well. What do we get when we elect leaders who only know how to follow? What do we get when we take daily opinion as guiding precepts? When gossip becomes gospel, what happens to a nation's soul? Strength is better than weakness.

We abandoned Vietnam and it became totalitarian. Because of this Vietnam Syndrome, we abandoned the Shah and Iran went islamist. We quavered when the USSR invaded Afghanistan, and the mujahadeen gave rise to Osama. Now our cowardice has loosed the malevolent Jinn of islamism, that strides over the world on legs of state and private terrorism. We know how such things happen. We've had plenty of examples. Our enemies themselves have told us, in their archives. We lose wars the same way we create enemies: by being weak, and by lying about victories.

Ah well. There's nothing to be done about it. Except convert. It'll be fine. We'll just have to keep our sins private until we die, then we'll get all those virgins.


J