America and war | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: Jim Bispo's weekly column appears in the Beaufort Observer.

    We spent about ten years in Iraq and left a lot of American blood on the ground and a lot of the long green in the pockets of the politicos. It took us only about half that time to win (decisively) WWII. We spent about twice as much time fighting in Iraq before we decided to leave. Our withdrawal strategy was simple and straightforward. We simply declared a victory (that wasn't a victory), packed our bags and came home (or moved to Afghanistan). We didn't even pick up all our marbles when we left. As it turns out, the folks who filled the vacuum we left behind, got hold of all the American equipment we abandoned (i.e. handed over to our 'allies", the U.S. trained - but obviously not committed - Iraqi military) and are now using it against the Iraqi people. How can it take the most powerful country on the globe so long to not win a war?? And, of course it was the fault of the Iraqi Prime Minister that we left a vacuum when we departed. He wouldn't agree to a "Status of Forces Agreement" that we could accept. We really worked on getting one. Of course we did...

    There are some fairly significant differences between the two situations.

    First: In WWII, we could recognize the enemy: We were so good at it that we were even able to recognize some Americans who looked a lot like the Pearl Harbor aggressors. They were Americans, but the looked kinda like the aggressors. And what did we do about that?? We took their property and "relocated" a lot of American Citizens of Japanese descent who lived (mainly) along the west coast to internment camps. We even did the same to a few people (but by no means all) in Hawaii - where a fairly large percentage of the population was of Japanese origin. We are left to wonder why we didn't do the same to the people of Italian or German extraction who lived here. Of course the Japanese were easier to recognize - unless you got them mixed up with Chinese or other orientals who also lived here. But still it wasn't too difficult. The Chinese ran laundries or restaurants. the Japanese were "truck farmers". (Of course those were the days when you could make those kinds of distinctions - before the PC police were enforcing their will on the rest of us. Surely you wouldn't be allowed to do that today. Hmmm). However, once we got off shore we were able to recognize the "enemy". They were the ones wearing the Imperial Japanese Army uniforms and flying a flag with the "Rising Sun" on it. Not so easy in Iraq.

    Second: We were dedicated to their destruction: Once we recognized them, we were, from the President on down, dedicated to their destruction. There were "Geneva Convention" types of "Rules of Engagement". I don't believe there were any that tied one arm behind the back of our GIs as seems to have been the case in Iraq and Afghanistan. We were in the war and we were in it to win. That's all there was to it.. The results would seen to support the effectiveness of the policy. So why do you suppose we changed the policy?? It surely didn't seem that we were in Iraq to win anything. Because it was the "Bush war" maybe it didn't really matter if we won or not. Right?? Sunday I heard someone quoting the Anointed One as saying something to the effect that he would like the situation in Iraq to end with no victor and no loser. No wonder so many pipsqueak countries seem to be dissing us at every opportunity. It sounds as though the Anointed One was part of one of those youth soccer leagues in which everyone ended up getting a trophy (and never grew out of it). Hmmm...

    Oh!! Maybe there was one more thing: WWII happened before the PC police were in existence. The PC police may well have been the reason for the vastly improved "Rules of Engagement" we implemented in Iraq. Only shoot at the folks who are shooting at you while they are shooting at you. Stop chasing them a soon as they put down their weapon and go hide behind the skirt of their women folk or kids or others...

    We called the Pearl Harbor aggressors all sorts of names. I don't ever remembering anyone being called down for the names we used. (If you're too young to remember what they were, ask your parents or grandparents.) We never heard anyone telling us that most of the Japanese were peace loving gentle people (even though they probably were). We were never told that the people we were fighting represented only a small hate filed percentage of the entire population (even though they probably were). I don't ever remember hearing of anything called the Council on American-Japanese Relations (CAJR) who exercised theirs freedom of speech by telling us what good, peaceful people the Japanese were without ever mentioning - or acknowledging things like the Bataan death March and other atrocities attributed to the Nippon military. Neither do I remember the CAJR trying to truncate our freedom of speech by prohibiting any "bad mouthing" of the Japanese. We did get propaganda, but it didn't come from a so called American organization relying on First Amendment free speech guarantees. It came from Tokyo Rose (who I am sorry to say was born in American of Japanese parents)..

    Today the PC Police seem to be in charge. We are not allowed to call the aggressors in Iraq or Afghanistan or Syria or any other place in the Middle East (or any other place in the world for that matter) what many of us would like to call them lest we are labeled as racist or accused of being Islamophobic or some other equally unpleasant sobriquet. We have the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) which seems to be dedicated to convincing us what a benevolent religion Islam is. And no-one is allowed to find fault with them, because it wouldn't be nice (or something). They seem quite happy to have their speech protected by the First Amendment. At the same time they are quick to find fault with (i.e. deny free speech to) anyone else whose rhetoric they don't care for... Another group that gets streets named after them (One Way).

    Now we find ISIS filling the void we left in Iraq when we left. We have some number of military troopers on the ground, presumably protecting a diplomatic compound in Kurdish territory. I suppose someone might question why we don't simply evacuate all the US civilians located there - which would make the troops superfluous - if we were to believe what the Anointed One tells us about why they are there. Instead we send more troops. Go figure...

    And speaking of sending more troops, do you suppose it is true that we have several thousand troops being trained in "oxford" shoes (rather than GI boots) in preparation for sending them to Iraq?? After all the Anointed One and his sycophant Secretary of State keep telling us there will be no more US "boots" on the ground. They haven't said anything about oxfords, boat shoes, sandals or some other non-boot footwear. What are we to think?? What are we to believe?? If the history of the veracity of those two is any indication, the short answer is nothing.

    D'ya Think??