State of insanity

President Bush gave us his state of Iraq speech last night, but the senior statesman of the Democratic Party gave his the day before.

You probably heard something about Sen. Ted Kennedy's call for Congress to vote on whether more U.S. troops should be sent to Iraq.

I don't particularly have any argument with that. After all, Congress is the body specifically charged in the U.S. Constitution with declaring war. It is Congress' continued support of that war effort that will be essential to any victory. That's why I suggested before the war that Bush should pursue a complete mandate from Congress for the first real declaration of war since 1941.

But it was something else Kennedy said that provides insight into the deeply disturbed mind of this immoral man, this politician hopelessly unfit for high office.

Kennedy called Iraq Bush's Vietnam. And, in doing so, he explained what he meant by that characterization.

"In Vietnam, the White House grew increasingly obsessed with victory, and increasingly divorced from the will of the people and any rational policy," he explained. "There was no military solution to that war. But we kept trying to find one anyway. In the end, 58,000 Americans died in the search for it. Echoes of that disaster are all around us today. Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam."

I could easily write a doctoral thesis on this quote, but I am limited to just 750 words. So let me get right to it.

I've often said there are many living among us who apparently exist in a parallel universe. During my radio days, I called this parallel universe "Bizarro World." It's a place where black is white, right is left, up is down and right is wrong. Everything is backward, inverted, twisted in opposition.

Kennedy, for instance, looks at Vietnam and finds the problem there was that the president, a Democrat, his late brother's vice president, was "obsessed with victory."

I lived through the Vietnam War. I've read dozens of books about it. I know many men who fought in the war. I've even met many of the policymakers responsible for conducting the conflict.

Never before Kennedy made this statement have I ever heard anyone suggest the problem in Vietnam was a preoccupation with victory. It was just the opposite. From the outset of Lyndon Johnson's escalation of the war, the goal was never "victory." The goal was to pressure the North Vietnamese Communist aggressors to accept a negotiated political solution.

Furthermore, the very phrase "obsessed with victory" betrays the total illogic and moral bankruptcy of Kennedy and his party. What's wrong with victory? To Kennedy and the Democrats, a U.S. victory is unthinkable – the worst possible outcome of a war.

I would suggest no war is worth fighting unless the goal is total victory. That was the real problem with Vietnam and the reason it turned into a disaster – because the U.S. did not pursue victory.

Kennedy goes on to say: "There was no military solution to that war. But we kept trying to find one anyway."

How could anyone believe such a thing? The U.S. had recently played a large role in defeating the combined efforts of the Nazi juggernaut and imperial Japan. Does Kennedy really believe that an even stronger U.S. in the 1960s could not have defeated the divided country of Vietnam? It's ludicrous to even discuss it.

Clearly, the U.S. fought the Vietnam War with both hands tied behind its back by politicians – especially Johnson and later Richard Nixon, who accepted the advice of Henry Kissinger that a negotiated solution was the way to go. Johnson and Nixon never even defined what victory would mean.

And that, unfortunately, is the real resemblance between Vietnam and Iraq – the inability or unwillingness to define victory and pursue it aggressively. It's the only way wars should ever be fought. Fight to win, or don't start them.

Yes, Sen. Kennedy, all Americans should be "obsessed with victory." If not, we shall surely be faced with defeat.

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