Exit Strategy, What Is It Good For?

Cross posted from Right In A Left World

August 26, 2007

Borrowing the title of the 1970 Motown Song sung by Edwin Starr, “War, What Is It Good For,” I feel compelled to compare it to Exit Strategies that the left maintains we must have in fighting terrorism.

In the song, Starr answers his question with “absolutely nothing!” 1970 was deep into the counter culture of anti-war and anti-American sentiment over our involvement in Viet Nam. 1970 was also the year I spent in its entirety in Viet Nam and believe it or not, the song was fairly well received those I served with and me. That is young soldiers for you.

My comparison begs the question of Exit Strategy, What Is It Good For? Primarily a business phrase for knowing when to bail on an investment or venture, applied to our involvement in war it carries a similar meaning, pre-planning how far we will fight and when we will just up and stop, surrender, cut and run, whatever you label it.

In business investments it can be a good strategy to keep you from losing all of your investment capital. In war, it can only be disastrous. Can you seriously imagine General George S. Patton telling his beloved Third Army or the Americans trapped in Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge that he would only go so far in rescuing them? Can you imagine General Douglas McArthur broadcasting to the Philippines that he had reached the point of his “exit strategy” and they were on their own now against the vastly superior Japanese Army?

This is where we are at today in the War on Terror, especially in the Iraq Theater. The job is only partially accomplished and anti-war leftists and other kooks desire us to have entered the venture announcing to the world what our “exit strategy” was. According to them, we passed it long ago and must now abandon the effort, wasting well over 3,000 lives of America’s Bravest. Their sacrifices would be meaningless.

If our enemy’s have foreknowledge of our “exit strategy,” will they not just hang on, wearing us down to the point we abandon the effort and they step in and conquer who were supporting? Yes, that is what the North Vietnamese did to South Viet Nam by 1975, as we stood by and watched. The kooks on the left turned a blind eye to the carnage that followed in South Viet Nam and today, some even have the audacity to say the Vietnamese are better off or that it never materialized. Just because some may be fairing better today or may have progressed to a higher situation doesn’t negate what happened as we cruelly allowed them to be overtaken by the oppressive Communist regime of North Viet Nam.

Osama Bin Laden, leader of the Terrorist Group, Al Qaeda stated in his 1996 ‘fatwah’ against America, "You have been disgraced by Allah and you withdrew. The extent of your impotence and weaknesses has become very clear.” This was said about our “exit strategy” in Somalia under the Clinton administration after the “Black Hawk Down” incident when terrorist drug the dead bodies of our Troops through the streets. Instead of annihilating the terrorists, we executed an “exit strategy.”

Bin Laden also said, “The youth were surprised at the low morale of the American soldiers and realized, more than before, that the American soldier was a paper tiger and after a few blows…would run in defeat.” Perhaps he didn’t realize that in today’s America, “running in defeat” isn’t that at all. It is the implementation of an “exit strategy!”

Bill Powers of the American Thinker says in part, “To plan an exit strategy … implies that the National Command Authority anticipates failure.” Our enemies see that point of failure, or “running in defeat,” and work diligently to bring us to that point. We lose the war and ultimately, our freedoms.

War is not a gentlemen’s game. They are brutal. They are dirty. They are expensive. They require great sacrifices. They are bloody. That is why we strive to avoid them. But when despots try to dominate the world and take away our God-given freedoms, they become very necessary. Announcing to your enemies that you are only willing to oppose them a little makes them all the more worse.

That is what an “exit strategy” amounts to, telling your enemy that you are only willing to oppose them a little. Once you reach your pre-determined point of quitting, they win by default.

What a waste of lives of our Brave Troops!

Comparing again to Edwin Starrs song, Exit Strategy, What Is It Good For? I can only answer, Absolutely Nothing!!

For any who disagree, feel free to state the “exit strategy” of our enemy, the radical Jihadists.

Lew