Obama on Afghanistan: victory is a four-letter word
I’ve got a post up at American Thinker on the topic of Obama’s distate at the notion of “victory” in Afghanistan, and American “victory” in general.
Feel free to join in the comments section there and/or here, as you wish.
After you read the piece, though, please come back here and read the following addendum. Space constraints prevented me from adding it to the original article:
For those interested, here’s a more complete account of the signing at the Japanese surrender. The Japanese dignitaries who signed did so in the name of the Emperor, who was not present. But although MacArthur presided, the US was hardly the only country to whom the Japanese surrendered—remember, we fought as one of the Allies, albeit a very important one.
Note, also, the symbolic presence at the signing ceremony of the flag commemorating Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor that marked our entry into the war against that country. How much does Obama, a Hawaiian, even know of the sneak attack on the base at his own state, and the fact that in fighting WWII on the Asian front we were responding to Japanese aggression? Our victory over Japan was extremely hard-fought, much desired, and very satisfying—although bittersweet, since it came at such a huge cost in suffering on all sides:
The signing ceremony took 23 minutes to complete, and was held aboard the battleship USS Missouri, anchored with other American and British ships in Tokyo Bay. Symbolically, the deck of the Missouri furnished two American flags. One had flown over the White House on the day Pearl Harbor was attacked. The other had flown the mast of Commodore Perry’s ship when he had sailed into that same harbor nearly a century before to urge the opening of Japan’s ports to foreign trade. The instrument was signed by the Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu “By command and on behalf of the Emperor of Japan and the Japanese Government” And then General Yoshijiro Umezu “By command and on behalf of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters” at 9:04 am.
Afterwards, U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, Commander of the Southwest Pacific and Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, also signed. He was followed by Admiral Chester Nimitz for the United States, Hsu Yung-Ch`ang for the Republic of China, Bruce Fraser for the United Kingdom, Kuzma Derevyanko for the Soviet Union, Thomas Blamey for Australia, Colonel Lawrence Moore Cosgrave for Canada, General Philippe Leclerc de Hautecloque for France, C.E.L. Helfrich for the Netherlands, and Leonard M. Isitt for New Zealand.
The document, prepared by the U.S. War Department, set out in 8 short paragraphs the complete capitulation of Japan. The opening words: “We, acting by command of and in behalf of the Emperor of Japan.” signified the importance attached to the Emperor’s role by the Americans who drafted the document. The short second paragraph went straight to the heart of the matter: “We hereby proclaim the unconditional surrender to Allied Powers of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters and all of Japanese armed forces and all armed forces under Japanese control wherever situated.” The document demanded that Japan “carry out the provisions of the Potsdam Declaration and free all Allied prisoners of war.”
Victory over the Axis powers in WWII was a clear cut case as black and white as you could get – there were NO obfuscations or confusion as to who won or lost.
Obama, a product of today’s Ivory Towers, can’t see anything in a color other than gray, hence he has no perception of what true victory means.
Well, actually, he can see colors other than gray, but only when he’s castigating a police officer for arresting his buddy…..
They only speak gray; they think in black and white; America is bad; her enemies are good.
This was an unbelievable remark from a POTUS.
It not only insults our armed forces of today and degrades our current effort, but it insults the armed forces of WW2 and their efforts.
Beyond belief! He degrades the office and the country.
He should not be anywhere near any sort of power whatsoever.
How are we to face a hostile world with this imbecile in charge.
The fact that Obama thought that the Emperor himself came down to the ship to sign the surrender shows just what kind of a historical ignoramus he is.
As an aside, I might note that although Japanese forces were supposed to cease their aggressive actions and surrender that day, communications being what they were, and some Japanese officers unwilling to believe that the Emperor had surrendered, quite a few did not cease aggression or surrender for several days.
There was also a “kill order” that the Japanese high command had issued during the war, calling for the Japanese commanding POW internment centers to kill all of the U.S. POWs they had captured and interned if they tried to escape, or if they judged that the situation had became unstable. Luckily, at the time of surrender, Japanese commanders of POW camps realized that they would be hung if they did so and, ultimately, didn’t carry out these orders (although I believe I have read that one Japanese commander judged things to be “unstable” sometime before the surrender, and massacred, or tried to massacre, all his POWs.
U.S. policy in the immediate post war period was to minimize Japanese crimes and atrocities so as not to “inflame ” American public opinion or to make the U.S. occupation of Japan harder to accomplish. So, evidence about things like Japanese Unit 731’s lethal chemical and biological warfare experiments that killed perhaps 10,000 or more POWs–perhaps some of them Americans–and others in very painful and gruesome ways, as well as the existence of the “kill order” were covered up or minimized.
In the case of the kill order, it was “hidden in plain sight”; introduced by number, say, exhibit # 857, and accepted into evidence but never described or discussed by the court or prosecuting attorneys.
I should clarify, evidence introduced in the War Crimes Trials in the Far East that we and the Allies held after WWII.
Neo:
During the campaign, Obama once referenced the attack on Pearl Harbor in one of his speeches. His comment, if my memory is correct, was as follows:
“… the bomb that fell on Pearl Harbor…”
I’m sure Hannity has the audio — I’ve heard it numerous times.
Once again demonstrating his superior knowledge…
One more correction necessary to the above. The estimates for the number of Unit 731’s victims range from a low of 800-1,000 to a high of 10,000 or more; in any case, far more than were ever killed by the Nazi’s much more well known Dr. Mengele.
The victims were a mixed bag, many POWs–Russians and others, Commmunists, guerrillas, criminals, Jews, White Russians, anybody Unit 731 could round up in the area of their main base at Harbin, Manchuria.
Great post (linked from AT)… I like the fact that a therapist is able to pick up signals from the real Obama in spite of his ‘tough’ facade by noticing key words that he lets slip.
These words along with his ‘stupidly’ comment show that he may be unable to keep his true self hidden for much longer. The outbursts are becoming more frequent. We all know that pressure increases throughout a president’s term, and he will most likely resent having to stay on script forever. I think his true self needs an outlet, and we’ll hear more of these as time goes on.
One more idea: perhaps O brings up Hirohito because he sympathizes with him as fellow Supreme Emperor, and the thought of having to eventually “come down” off his high horse and submit to a greater power (i.e., the mandate of the American people) scares the bejeezus out of him. So, even the word “victory” in its most general meaning, somehow implies ‘defeat’ for Obama, and indeed for all power-driven dictators.
I’m not certain what Pres. Obama has in mind when it comes to his policy for Afghanistan. At one time he seemed to assert that Afghanistan was the place to fight alQaeda and along with them the Taliban; at another time we hear that his National Security Advisor Jim Jones tells the commanders in the field that they can expect to hear “WTF?” from the President should they ever seek more troops to do the job that they have been charged by Obama to do (whatever precisely that is). When the policy was rolled out back in March of this year, we were told by Marc Ambinder that on Afghanistan and Pakistan:
Results driven cooperation to what exactly? We don’t know. (Note that Ambinder seemed to be impressed that Obama was going to bring Iran! into the calculations back then: “codifies for the first time Iran’s role in regional diplomacy”. We see how well that’s worked out in the meantime.)
At the same time, men who’s opinion I trust, men like Mike Yon and Herschel Smith believe that it will be decades before the Afghans make significant progress toward merely controlling their own nation, let alone joining the rest of the emerging democracies of Asia like India, Thailand, and Indonesia in providing stability and economic well being and education for their people, to say nothing of the more advanced economic powers like South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. Afghanistan is a hard case, perhaps as hard a case as a nation as any other on earth.
Though he hasn’t had much of a mention yet in this discussion, I think that Pres. Bush understood this “hard case” fact about Afghanistan and that in some measure, his practical sense of the matter was to keep our expectations low while keeping the jihadi presence there in check. I can’t recall a single instance of Bush suggesting we strive for victory as such in Afghanistan (as distinct from victory over al Qaeda).
In the meantime, US and allied casualties are growing due to the greater numbers of men on the ground and the greater numbers of engagements fought as those men press to rid select areas of Talib influence and bring security to the people, as they put it. On the upside, in contrast to my apprehensions about Obama, Gen Petraeus remains at his post overseeing the region. That may be the lone reassuring circumstance in the mix.
OT: my family has always been proud that my uncle was selected to fly – in a demonstration team of fighter pilots (a precursor to the Blue Angels) – above those who gathered for the surrender ceremony on the deck of the Missouri. General MacArthur wanted the most impressive display of military capability which he was able to muster. The following year, 1946, Adm. Nimitz ordered the formation of a Navy flight demonstration team. The team created their own moniker, “The Blue Angels”, because one of their pilots knew of The Blue Angel nightclub in NYC.
re: your AT piece – Your penultimate paragraph – POW! (say that five times and you could put out a lot of matches)
Obama cares about Obama’s victories, not US victories.
Only one bomb fell on Pearl Harbor and Ben Affleck was in it.
As somebody said, lucky Sarah Palin didn’t make the Hirohito remark. She would have been called ignorant and stupid.
Startling ignorance on display from The One. What did he learn at Columbia and Harvard?
And how can his supporters keep on waxing lyrical about his “brilliance?”
I read a line in about 1985 about Ralph Lauren’s lack of design imagination: “He is the most brilliant designer ever to find an old Abercrombie & Fitch catalog and some tracing paper.” I feel the same way about Obama’s speeches: they are shallow and derivative, without an iota of originality in them, mere pale copies MLK’s speeches.
Obama has a nice speaking voice. He would be fantastic doing voice-overs for NFL Films, or maybe movie trailers.
Well, the very rich, the very progressive and the very elite regard themselves as citizens of the world, don’t they?
By curious and unnatural circumstances, they are suddenly in command of the entity they hate and despise. The coup d’etat of our economy, of energy and now of heathcare are all aspects of the same goal, which is to hammer this country down and into its proper place. A composite of Sweden and Cuba, as far as I can make out. It goes without saying that our military, let alone military victory, is not to their taste.
But I take hope in their madness. It may be, as the Communists proved, that decades indoctrination and propaganda cannot greatly alter the stubborn bedrock of national character. I don’t know about the rest of you but I’m sensing damn little hope and damn less enthusiasm for change as I (so faux-casually) talk to people around me.
The word “hate” is thrown about too loosely nowadays, but I can honestly confess that for the people who want to destroy this country, I feel hate.
I am reminded of my favorite stand-up comedian, Brian Regan.
“I don’t like the phrase “one thing led to another.” Imagine reading a history book, “As a young man, Adolf Hitler was rejected from art school. Well, one thing led to another, and the United States dropped two nuclear bombs on the Empire of Japan.”
Hope this helps.
Hah! Much as I feel sorry for the little boy on his tricycle in the ancient photo, who probably didn’t start out as a Mess, a Mess he turned out to be, and I don’t know what anyone with a functional brain was thinking who cast a vote for him.
(Actually, I do know that some people were simply overcome with pride that our country had come so far as to have a part-Negro candidate, and in the words of an online pal who’d grown up in a Negro neighborhood and thought the world of his father’s friends there and the whole community, “I wanted so much to vote for the first black President.”
http://www.hoboes.com/FireBlade/Editorials/HoodMilitia/
(And even David Horowitz wobbled slightly a week or two before the election IiRC, but I think he regained his balance before he voted.)
Personally, I voted for Gov. Palin.
(Ben just above on July 26, 2009 at 11:55 pm made an excellent point, by the way.)
“…for several days….”
Well, give or take….
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-25772192