"The Axis of Idiots"

[larrymeyer]

SEMPER FI




(Too bad we don't have folks on Capitol Hill willing to speak out like this.

J.D. Pendry is a retired Marine Sergeant Major who writes for Random House. He is eloquent, and he seldom beats around the bush!)


"The Axis of Idiots"

Jimmy Carter, you are the father of the Islamic Nazi movement. You threw the Shah under the bus, welcomed the Ayatollah home, and then lacked the spine to confront the terrorists when they took our embassy and our people hostage. You're the runner-in-chief.

Bill Clinton, you played ring around the Lewinsky while the terrorists were at war with us. You got us into a fight with them in Somalia and then you ran from it. Your weak-willed responses to the U.S.S. Cole and the First Trade Center Bombing and Our Embassy Bombings emboldened the killers. Each time you failed to respond adequately, they grew bolder, until 9/11/2001.

John Kerry, dishonesty is your most prominent attribute. You lied about American Soldiers in Vietnam . Your military service, like your life, is more fiction than fact. You've accused our military of terrorizing women and children in Iraq . You called Iraq the wrong war, wrong place, wrong time, the same words you used to describe Vietnam . You're a fake. You want to run from Iraq and abandon the Iraqis to murderers just as you did the Vietnamese. Iraq , like Vietnam , is another war that you were for, before you were against it.

John Murtha, you said our military was broken. You said we can't win militarily in Iraq . You accused United States Marines of cold-blooded murder without proof and said we should redeploy to Okinawa . Okinawa, John? And the Democrats call you their military expert! Are you sure you didn't suffer a traumatic brain injury while you were off building your war hero resume? You're a sad, pitiable, corrupt and washed up politician. You're not a Marine, sir. You wouldn't amount to a good pimple on a real Marine's ass. You're a phony and a disgrace. Run away, John.

Dick Durbin, you accused our Soldiers at Guantanamo of being Nazis, tenders of Soviet style gulags and as bad as the regime of Pol Pot, who murdered two million of his own people after your party abandoned Southeast Asia to the Communists. Now you want to abandon the Iraqis to the same fate. History was not a good teacher for you, was it? Lord help us! See Dick run.

Ted Kennedy, for days on end you held poster-sized pictures from Abu Ghraib in front of any available television camera. Al Jazeera quoted you saying that Iraqi's torture chambers were open under new management. Did you see the news, Teddy? The Islamic Nazis demonstrated another beheading for you. If you truly supported our troops, you'd show the world poster-sized pictures of that atrocity and demand the annihilation of it. Your legislation stripping support from the South Vietnamese led to a communist victory there. You're a bloated, drunken fool bent on repeating the same historical blunder that turned freedom-seeking people over to homicidal, genocidal maniacs. To paraphrase John Murtha, all while sitting on your wide, gin-soaked rear-end in Washington .

Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Carl Levine, Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein, Russ Feingold, Hillary Clinton, Pat Leahy, Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer, the Hollywood Leftist morons, et al, ad nauseam: Every time you stand in front of television cameras and broadcast to the Islamic Nazis that we went to war because our President lied, that the war is wrong and our Soldiers are torturers, that we should leave Iraq, you give the Islamic butchers - the same ones that tortured and mutilated American Soldiers - cause to think that we'll run away again, and all they have to do is hang on a little longer. It is inevitable that we, the infidels, will have to defeat the Islamic jihadists. Better to do it now on their turf, than later on ours after they have gained both strength and momentum.

American news media, the New York Times particularly: Each time you publish stories about national defense secrets and our intelligence gathering methods, you become one united with the sub-human pieces of camel dung that torture and mutilate the bodies of American Soldiers. You can't strike up the courage to publish cartoons, but you can help Al Qaeda destroy my country. Actually, you are more dangerous to us than Al Qaeda is. Think about that each time you face Mecca to admire your Pulitzer..

You are America 's "AXIS OF IDIOTS." Your Collective Stupidity will destroy us. Self-serving politics and terrorist-abetting news scoops are more important to you than our national security or the lives of innocent civilians and Soldiers. It bothers you that defending ourselves gets in the way of your elitist sport of politics and your ignorant editorializing. There is as much blood on your hands as is on the hands of murdering terrorists. Don't ever doubt that. Your frolics will only serve to extend this war as they extended Vietnam . If you want our Soldiers home as you claim, knock off the crap and try supporting your country ahead of supporting your silly political aims and aiding our enemies.

Yes, I'm questioning your patriotism. Your loyalty ends with self. I'm also questioning why you're stealing air that decent Americans could be breathing. You don't deserve the protection of our men and women in uniform. You need to run away from this war, this country. Leave the war to the people who have the will to see it through and the country to people who are willing to defend it.

No, Mr. President, you don't get off the hook, either. Our country has two enemies: Those who want to destroy us from the outside and those who attempt it from within. Your Soldiers are dealing with the outside force. It's your obligation to support them by confronting the AXIS OF IDIOTS.

America must hear it from you that these self-centered people are harming our country, abetting the enemy and endangering our safety. Well up a little anger, please, and channel it toward the appropriate target. You must prosecute those who leak national security secrets to the media. You must prosecute those in the media who knowingly publish those secrets.

Our Soldiers need you to confront the enemy that they cannot. They need you to do it now.

Semper Fi,
J. D. Pendry - Sergeant Major, USMC, Retired

[Pector55]

Bravo! Tell him to run for office.

[Seventy4Blazer]

hmm.. it doesnt come up on snopes, but it does come up under a few different things...


no clue if its true or not, but it is right on the money either way!

[pex]

Bravo! Tell him to run for office.

You're in support of a guy who spends a lot of time whining about the release of 'national secrets'? Maybe you don't know what qualifies as a national secret these days...pretty much anything.

Maybe if the government was just transparent as a policy, the media wouldn't seek and publish whatever these apparently most-damning national secrets are. J. D. Pendry doesn't seem like a guy who'd help take us there.

[Eugene V. Debs]

Not a fan of Carter, but he can hardly be faulted for the Shah's overthrow. And he did make an attempt to rescue the hostages-- he shouldn't be blamed for the sandstorm that ruined the operation.

Where I do fault Carter and Reagan (along with the Congresses under them, as well as Thatcher and Bhutto) is training, organizing and equipping the mujahadeen in the Afghan War. That had much more to do with creating the "Islamic Nazis" the post speaks of than the 1979 Iranian Revolution. After all, the Iranian Revolution could only have so much impact when they are Shi'ites and the vast majority of the world's Muslims are Sunni. And the Afghan War is where the core original leaders of Al Qaeda got their training, not to mention the mujahadeen struggle there created a global organization of well-trained Muslim extremists-- a good portion of the fighters in the Afghan War were Muslims from outside the country, imported by the CIA, MI-6 and ISI.

Our government created a Frankenstein's monster and both political parties share the blame for that.

[Eugene V. Debs]

One more thing-- how exactly did the Democratic Party "abandon Southeast Asia to the Communists"? Nixon was the one who withdrew our troops.

[Pector55]

You're in support of a guy who spends a lot of time whining about the release of 'national secrets'? Maybe you don't know what qualifies as a national secret these days...pretty much anything.

Maybe if the government was just transparent as a policy, the media wouldn't seek and publish whatever these apparently most-damning national secrets are. J. D. Pendry doesn't seem like a guy who'd help take us there.

I'm in support of a guy who tells the whiners to STFU.

[larrymeyer]

One more thing-- how exactly did the Democratic Party "abandon Southeast Asia to the Communists"? Nixon was the one who withdrew our troops.

Nixon wanted to continue the war but the peace activist put enought pressure on him to end it

Ending the Vietnam War, 1973-1975

Newly elected President Richard M. Nixon declared in 1969 that he would continue the American involvement in the Vietnam War in order to end the conflict and secure "peace with honor" for the United States and for its ally, South Vietnam. Unfortunately, Communist North Vietnam's leaders, believing that time was on their side, steadfastly refused to negotiate seriously. Indeed, in March 1972 they attempted to bypass negotiations altogether with a full-scale invasion of the South. Called the Easter Offensive by the United States, the invasion at first appeared to succeed. By late summer, however, Nixon's massive application of American air power blunted the offensive. At this point, the North Vietnamese began to negotiate in earnest. In early October, American and North Vietnamese representatives met in Paris. By October 11, they had hammered out a peace agreement. Its key elements were: all parties would initiate a cease-fire in place 24 hours after signing the agreement; U.S. forces and all foreign troops would withdraw from South Vietnam no later than 60 days after signing the agreement; American prisoners would be released simultaneously with the withdrawal of American and foreign forces; and a National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord would be created to organize and oversee free and democratic elections to determine the political future of the South.

The agreement represented a victory for the North Vietnamese but also it seemed to provide an honorable way out for the Americans. Nixon quickly approved the terms. On October 22, however, South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu stopped the process in its tracks. Especially infuriating to him was the cease-fire in place. It left thousands of North Vietnamese soldiers in South Vietnam (estimates ranged from 140,000 to 300,000) well positioned to continue the war when the Americans departed. To gain Thieu's support, the Americans reopened negotiations with the North Vietnamese based on his objections. This so offended the North Vietnamese that they too insisted on renegotiating several settled issues. By mid December the talks had collapsed.

Diplomacy had failed and a greatly frustrated Nixon concluded that only force could persuade Hanoi that negotiating with the United States was preferable to continuing the war. The President ordered his military commanders to mine Haiphong Harbor and to initiate a sustained air campaign in the Hanoi-Haiphong region. Beginning on December 18 and continuing for 11 days, American bombing attacked all significant military targets in the region. Even though the targets were military, the aim was psychological—to shock the North Vietnamese back to the negotiations in a frame of mind to end the war. On December 26, the North Vietnamese signaled their willingness to be agreeable and to meet in early January. After 3 more days of bombing, Nixon ended the air campaign. Nixon also believed that the bombing would remind the South Vietnamese that American air power was the most powerful weapon against the North Vietnamese, and that its continued availability was contingent upon South Vietnamese support of the agreement.

Nixon's plan worked and in early January 1973, the Americans and North Vietnamese ironed out the last details of the settlement. All parties to the conflict, including South Vietnam, signed the final agreement in Paris on January 27. As it turned out, only America honored the cease-fire. Furthermore, the National Council of National Reconciliation and Concord was stillborn. The North wanted to destroy South Vietnam while the South wanted to defeat the Northern forces. The inevitable solution, therefore, was to fight until one side won. Military facts on the ground, not words on paper, would determine South Vietnam's future. Additionally, within 24 hours of the cease-fire coming into effect, the return of the almost 600 American prisoners began, as did the redeployment home of the remaining American and South Korean troops in South Vietnam. The January accords, titled the "Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam," neither ended the war (except for the United States) nor restored the peace. A little over 2 years later, 30 North Vietnamese divisions conquered the South and restored peace in Vietnam. The American commitment to defend South Vietnam, described as unequivocal by Nixon and Kissinger, had been vitiated by the Watergate scandal and Nixon's subsequent resignation. By that time, the Paris Accords seemed memorable only as the vehicle on which the United States rode out of Southeast Asia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War

The U.S. and other allied forces began drastically reducing threir troop support in South Vietnam during the final years of "Vietnamization". Many U.S. troops were removed from the region, and on March 5, 1971, the U.S. returned the 5th Special Forces Group, which was the first American unit deployed to South Vietnam, to its former base in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.[117]

Under Paris Peace Accord, between North Vietnamese Foreign Minister Lê Ðức Thọ and U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and reluctantly signed by South Vietnamese President Thiệu, U.S. military forces withdrew from South Vietnam and prisoners were exchanged. North Vietnam was allowed to continue supplying communist troops in the South, but only to the extent of replacing materials that were consumed. Later that year the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Kissinger and Thọ, but the Vietnamese negotiator declined it saying that a true peace did not yet exist.

The communist leaders had expected that the ceasefire terms would favor their side. But Saigon, bolstered by a surge of U.S. aid received just before the ceasefire went into effect, began to roll back the Vietcong.[118] The communists responded with a new strategy hammered out in a series of meetings in Hanoi in March 1973, according to the memoirs of Trần Văn Trà.[118] As the Vietcong's top commander, Trà participated in several of these meetings.[118] With U.S. bombings suspended, work on the Ho Chi Minh Trail and other logistical structures could proceed unimpeded.[118] Logistics would be upgraded until the North was in a position to launch a massive invasion of the South, projected for the 1975-76 dry season.[118] Trà calculated that this date would be the Hanoi's last opportunity to strike before Saigon's army could be fully trained. A three-thousand-mile long oil pipeline would be built from North Vietnam to Vietcong headquarters in Loc Ninh, about 75 miles (121 km) northwest of Saigon.[118]

Although McGovern himself was not elected U.S. president, the November 1972 election did return a Democratic majority to both houses of Congress under McGovern's "Come home America" campaign theme. On March 15, 1973, U.S. President Richard Nixon implied that the U.S. would intervene militarily if the communist side violated the ceasefire.[119] Public and congressional reaction to Nixon's trial balloon was unfavorable and in April Nixon appointed Graham Martin as U.S. ambassador to Vietnam. Martin was a second stringer compared to previous U.S. ambassadors and his appointment was an early signal that Washington had given up on Vietnam.[119] During his confirmation hearings in June 1973, Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger stated that he would recommend resumption of U.S. bombing in North Vietnam if North Vietnam launched a major offensive against South Vietnam. On June 4, 1973, the U.S. Senate passed the Case-Church Amendment to prohibit such intervention.[119]

The oil price shock of October 1973 caused significant damage to the South Vietnamese economy. The Vietcong resumed offensive operations when dry season began and by January 1974 it had recaptured the territory it lost during the previous dry season. After two clashes that left 55 South Vietnamese soldiers dead, President Thiệu announced on January 4 that the war had restarted and that the Paris Peace Accord was no longer in effect. There had been over 25,000 South Vietnamese casualties during the ceasefire period.[120]

Gerald Ford took over as U.S. president on August 9, 1974 after President Nixon resigned due to the Watergate scandal. At this time, Congress cut financial aid to South Vietnam from $1 billion a year to $700 million. The U.S. midterm elections in 1974 brought in a new Congress dominated by Democrats who were even more determined to confront the president on the war. Congress immediately voted in restrictions on funding and military activities to be phased in through 1975 and to culminate in a total cutoff of funding in 1976.

The success of the 1973-74 dry season offensive inspired Trà to return to Hanoi in October 1974 and plead for a larger offensive in the next dry season. This time, Trà could travel on a drivable highway with regular fueling stops, a vast change from the days was Ho Chi Minh Trail was a dangerous mountain trek.[121] Giáp, the North Vietnamese defense minister, was reluctant to approved Trà's plan. A larger offensive might provoke a U.S. reaction and interfere with the big push planned for 1976. Trà appealed over Giáp's head to party boss Lê Duẩn, who obtained Politburo approval for the operation.

Trà's plan called for a limited offensive from Cambodia into Phuoc Long Province. The strike was designed to solve local logistical problems, gauge the reaction of South Vietnamese forces, and determine whether the U.S. would return to the fray.

On December 13, 1974, North Vietnamese forces attacked Route 14 in Phouc Long Province. Phouc Binh, the provincial capital, fell on January 6, 1975. Ford desperately asked Congress for funds to assist and re-supply the South before it was overrun. Congress refused. The fall of Phouc Binh and the lack of an American response left the South Vietnamese elite demoralized and corruption grew rampant.

The speed of this success led the Politburo to reassess its strategy. It was decided that operations in the Central Highlands would be turned over to General Văn Tiến Dũng and that Pleiku should be seized, if possible. Before he left for the South, Dũng was addressed by Lê Duẩn: "Never have we had military and political conditions so perfect or a strategic advantage as great as we have now."[122]

By 1975 after the withdrawal of US forces, the South Vietnamese Army faced a well-organized, highly determined and well-funded North Vietnam. Much of the North's material and financial support came from the communist bloc. Within South Vietnam, there was increasing chaos. Their abandonment by the American military had compromised an economy dependent on U.S. financial support and the presence of a large number of U.S. troops. South Vietnam suffered from the global recession which followed the Arab oil embargo.



Some Books
The Best and the Brightest
by David Halberstam
This 1973 classic is an unforgettable chronicle of John Kennedy's Camelot and its legacy --f eaturing remarkable portraits of the men who conceived and executed the Vietnam War, including Robert McNamara, McGeorge Bundy, Dean Rusk, and Presidents Kennedy and Johnson.

The Color of Truth: McGeorge Bundy and William Bundy: Brothers in Arms: A Biography by Kai Bird
This dual biography of the brothers who were top aides to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson is an outstanding study of the mindset that allowed the United States to become slowly ensnared in the Vietnam War. Both McGeorge Bundy, a national security advisor, and William Bundy, a senior official at the Pentagon and State Department, were liberal anti-Communists trying to balance American interests in Southeast Asia between what they considered the dangerous extremes of both Left and Right.

[D-FENS]

I stopped at "emboldened".

[Eugene V. Debs]

Hey larry,

That's all useful info, but whatever motivations Nixon had and whatever pressures he may have been under, he still withdrew the troops. And Nixon/Kissinger were not stupid men-- they both knew what withdrawal of our forces would mean. They weren't dumb enough to believe the RVN could handle it on their own, no matter how much funding and arms we gave them, nor were they so naïve as to think the NVA would ever stop short of full reunification.