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Local Columnists
Major Mistakes in the Vietnam War
- Details
- By Mike Scruggs
Micromanaging and Ignoring Military Chiefs - Part 5
A sixth prominent mistake in the Vietnam War was that President Johnson and Secretary of Defense McNamara continually refused to listen to the experience and accumulated wisdom of military chiefs and micromanaged military operations. This was an exacerbating factor in the first five mistakes covered in this series: appeasement, allowing enemy sanctuaries, a U.S. media-driven South Vietnamese regime change, the disastrous military doctrine of “gradualism,”and failure to utilize our strategic supremacy in Air and Naval power. Not listening to military experience and advice was also an important debilitating factor in providing effective political leadership in war. Some crucial leadership mistakes will be covered in another article in this series.
Major U.S. Mistakes in the Vietnam War
- Details
- By Mike Scruggs
Failure to Fully Utilize Air and Naval Superiority - Part 4
The fifth big mistake in Vietnam was failure to utilize our most powerful military assets—our overwhelming superiority in Air and Naval Power—early in the conflict. Pacific Area Commander (CinCPAC), Admiral Grant Sharp, believed this was the greatest mistake in the war. This mistake was closely related to and overlapped the fourth big mistake, which was the Johnson-McNamara doctrine of gradualism discussed in part 4 of this series.
On April 20, 1965, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara held a conference in Honolulu to inform General Wheeler, the Chairman of the JCS and his top commanders in the Pacific of the Johnson-McNamara strategy to prevent the fall of South Vietnam to the Communist regime in Hanoi. Also attending this meeting were Admiral Sharp; General Westmoreland, Commander of the Military Advisory Command in Vietnam (MACV); and retired General Maxwell Taylor, the U.S. Ambassador in Saigon. McNamara brought with him his most influential advisor, Assistant Secretary of Defense, John McNaughton, and National Security Advisor Walt Rostow. This was a mere seven weeks following the commencement of Operation “Rolling Thunder,” Johnson’s plan to bring Hanoi to the negotiating table by a gradually escalating campaign of bombing targets in North Vietnam.
Leading from Behind
- Details
- By David Thompson
Barack Obama will forever be remembered not just in America, but all over the world. When trying to nail down a single word to describe Obama’s foreign policies, the sure winner is: feckless. It is defined as being “weak; ineffective.” By golly, that is perfect.
Obama himself defined his leadership style as “leading from behind.” That is stunning because it articulates in his own words that he had no clue what it is to be a leader. He certainly didn’t provide any leadership either at home or abroad. Let’s review a few of the more memorable failures in leadership of Barack Obama as President of the United States (POTUS).
Recently Obama put the capstone on his tenure as POTUS by betraying Israel at the United Nations. There is little doubt that Obama sees the resolution he pushed through the UN Security Council denouncing Jewish settlements as a demonstration of his leadership. As his former Professor at Harvard Law Alan Dershowitz said, “Obama deceived me, he said he would have Israel’s back and instead he stuck a knife in it.” The US abstained from the vote that Obama engineered, thus allowing it to pass.
The Biggest Mistakes of the Vietnam War
- Details
- By Mike Scruggs
Still Popular in the Liberal Democrat Playbook - Part 3
In Parts 1 and 2 of this series, we identified three of the biggest mistakes of the Vietnam War:
President Kennedy’s failure to challenge North Vietnam’s glaring and extensive violation of the 1962 Geneva Treaty on the neutrality of Laos, President Johnson’s compounding of this error by allowing Laos and Cambodia to become sanctuaries for North Vietnamese troops and supplies, and Kennedy’s regime change call that encouraged a South Vietnamese military junta to replace elected South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem. The junta unfortunately murdered Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu. This threw South Vietnamese civil government and military leadership into chaos for over two years, which the Communists exploited to the fullest, forcing a huge expansion of American commitment and troops. This regime change was the greatest mistake of the war. President Carter’s failure to support the Shah of Iran, long-time U.S. ally, in the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979, and the Obama/Hillary Clinton backed Arab Spring involving Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Syria in 2011 were repeats of this media-pleasing liberal ideological error.
Major U.S. Mistakes in the Vietnam War
- Details
- By Mike Scruggs
Mistake #3 – the Biggest Mistake of the War - Part 2
On November 1, 1963, the Kennedy Administration encouraged and abetted a military overthrow of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem. As a consequence, Diem and his brother and chief political advisor, Ngo Dinh Nhu, were killed the next day. This led to more than two years of unstable government and military leadership in South Vietnam, which was fully exploited by North Vietnam’s Communist leaders and led to more extensive commitments of American manpower to save South Vietnam. President Johnson, who succeeded to the presidency after Kennedy’s own assassination on November 22, later called the overthrow of Diem the biggest mistake of the Vietnam War. President Nixon, writing in 1985, agreed that it was one of the three greatest mistakes of the war.
Major U.S. Mistakes in the Vietnam War
- Details
- By Mike Scruggs
Thirteen Political Formulas for Endangering America’s Future - Part 1
On June 23, 1812, Napoleon Bonaparte, still today considered one of the greatest generals and military tacticians in history, made one of the greatest strategic military mistakes in history. Napoleon gathered his Grande Armee of 685,000 men (300,000 French and 385,000 Austrian, Prussian and Polish allies), perhaps the greatest military force ever gathered at the time, and invaded Russia. Despite fierce Russian resistance at Borodino on September 7, and their scorched earth retreat leaving nothing behind them to sustain the Grande Armee, Napoleon occupied Moscow on September 14. However, the Russians burned much of the city and refused to surrender or engage Napoleon in pitched battle. The Grande Armee had already been substantially reduced by casualties and sickness (including typhus) and was in precarious logistical straits. On October 13, it began to snow. A few days later, Napoleon realized that the Grande Armee’s Russian campaign could not be sustained. In snow and bitter cold, with low food rations, starving horses, no winter uniforms, and sick and exhausted troops, Napoleon began his retreat out of Russia. On December 6, temperatures on his route of retreat into Lithuania dropped to 36 F. degrees below zero, so cold that men falling asleep by a campfire never woke up. By the time his Grande Armee crossed into Lithuania, it had less than 27,000 fit troops. Nearly 400,000 had died, 100,000 had been captured, and the rest scattered, deserted, or missing.
Harry Reid’s Gift to Trump
- Details
- By David Thompson
Sen. Harry Reid is retiring effective this January. So along with the celebration that Barack Obama’s term as POTUS is over, we can be thankful that the grandson of a horse thief is also gone from public life.
Harry Reid was a pauper when elected to Congress and retires as a multi-millionaire. His financial improvement was not due to his sparkling personality, even in Washington, Harry Reid had a well-deserved reputation as being prickly. But he was a formidable foe, and both his financial upgrade and his power in DC was owing to his ability to be obstinate. Harry Reid usually got his way, and that tells you at least as much about the other Senators as it does him. Suffice it to say, SC’s Lindsey Graham did not have the backbone to defy Harry Reid.
The rules of the Senate are what governs their procedures; they don’t conduct business under Mason’s Rules of Order. The Senate of the US has its own rules, and that is what most folks do not understand. We hear how the Senate blocked some measure by the filibuster, which always required 60 votes to overcome. It is rare when the Senate can get 60 members to agree on something, so that was a high bar, and Harry Reid used it to obstruct all manner of policy. Their hidebound ways were often criticized as counter-productive, few measures cleared the Senate. But there was always an ace in the hole, so draconian they called it the “nuclear option.” The fact is nobody from either party was willing to invoke a change in the rules to make it easier to approve a bill.
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