Individual Liberty — Individual Responsibility

For those we lost, We will not forget 09/11/2001

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
— The Continental Congress, July 4, 1776

“The task of statesmanship has always been the re-definition of these rights in terms of a changing and growing social order.”
— Franklin D. Roosevelt (Commonwealth Club Address, 1932)

“Roosevelt was wrong! The principles laid down in the Declaration of Independence are the principles of individual liberty. Our unalienable rights, given to us by God are given to us as individuals. Our rights do not come from society or the government, and they cannot be redefined by politicians. The nature of these rights carries with it the implication of individual responsibility, without which we surrender them.”
— Perri Nelson, November 6, 2008

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The wrong lesson

Published Tue, Jan 30 2007 3:16 PM
Technorati Tags: War on Terror, Iraq

I heard this read on the radio this morning on my way in to work. It's a pretty interesting piece of commentary from Foreign Policy, and I think it's worth a read. Here are a few highlights:

Vietnam taught many Americans the wrong lesson: that determined guerrilla fighters are invincible. But history shows that insurgents rarely win, and Iraq should be no different. Now that it finally has a winning strategy, the Bush administration is in a race against time to beat the insurgency before the public's patience finally wears out.

The cold, hard truth about the Bush administration’s strategy of "surging" additional U.S. forces into Iraq is that it could work. Insurgencies are rarely as strong or successful as the public has come to believe. ... Sending more American troops into Iraq with the aim of pacifying Baghdad could provide a foundation for their ultimate defeat, but only if the United States does not repeat its previous mistakes.

Mistakes like giving up before the job is done. Like flushing out a sewer without stopping the crap that blocked it up in the first place from flowing back in.

Myths about invincible guerrillas and insurgents are a direct result of America’s collective misunderstanding of its defeat in South Vietnam. This loss is generally credited to the brilliance and military virtues of the pajama-clad Vietcong. The Vietnamese may have been tough and persistent, but they were not brilliant. Rather, they were lucky—they faced an opponent with leaders unwilling to learn from their failures: the United States...

Similar misunderstandings persist over the Soviet Union's defeat in Afghanistan, the other supposed example of guerrilla invincibility. But it was not the mujahidin's strength that forced the Soviets to leave; it was the Soviet Union's own economic and political weakness at home. In fact, the regime the Soviets established in Afghanistan was so formidable that it managed to survive for three years after the Red Army left.

The anti-war crowd and the Democrats would have us believe that we can't beat an insurgency. They'd have us believe that this is the lesson that we've failed to learn from Vietnam.

The left constantly wants us to remember the lessons of Vietnam. Maybe that's why they've trotted out Jane Fonda again. So they can re-live their "glory days" once again.

The real lesson that we've failed to learn is that when you listen to negativity every day your will is sapped. And you can't win without the will to win.

We lost Vietnam because we lost the will to win. We'll lose in Iraq if we lose the will to defeat the so-called insurgents and provide the real security needed to keep them out.

Isn't that what the left and the Democrats are preaching at us now? "Get out", and "We can't win"? They never did learn, did they?

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