Disaster can be predicted reliably from two facts reported today by Fox News:
- The number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan has doubled in the last year and more are on the way.
- The President eschews any talk of victory.
Those old enough to remember Vietnam (Obama apparently not being one of them) will see the parallel.
The President who did his best as a Senator to hobble our efforts in that region had this to say.
I’m always worried about using the word “victory,” because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur.
And we certainly wouldn’t want to repeat that, would we?
Two things in Obama’s statement are striking. First, Hirohito did not surrender to MacArthur. Japan surrendered to the U.S. (Hirohito was not present at the signing.) MacArthur, for all his hubris and love for photo ops, knew that. He did not have to make some ridiculous disclaimer like, “It’s not about me.” Second, that word “always” speaks volumes. It tells us that the absence of victory is not a tactic devised to meet the realities of the current situation, but a strategy – a guiding principle.
It has taken a long time for the reality to surface that victory was within our grasp in Vietnam at the very point we adopted a strategy of defeat. The consequences of our half measures were horrific.
It would be reasonable to define victory as something other than a Hirohito moment, but taking victory out of the equation will surely lead to defeat.
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There is a real good article in the New Yorker of July 27 by Malcolm Gladwell, entitled “Cocksure,” in which he details the strategic pros and cons of confidence by leaders. I commend it to all. It makes the case to me that while overconfidence can be disastrous (see, e.g., financial meltdown), the lack of “it” (i.e., confidence perhaps exceeding rationality) can be far, far more disastrous; moreover, a bit of actually irrational confidence (verging on arrogance, but certainly including optimism, etc.) is actually quite essential to major accomplishments. Nowhere does Mr. Gladwell (or anyone else in my memory bank) trumpet the current value (strategic or otherwise) of apology, or naivety, or defeatism, or pacifism (what would Ghandi or Jesus do in the face of al qaida?) Yet this seems to be what our President is peddling on our behalf. I don’t like it.
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