Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Pacifica Commentary For February 14, 2007
Why We Lose
Why is it that we have lost the Indochina War and every conflict since that disaster. In each case we fought in opposition to the will of the vast majority of the people we attacked.
We sent an army of mercenaries to overthrow the government of Nicaragua in the 1980's killing 40,000, and who is ruling that country today? The Sandinistas. We spent billions and killed 80,000 people to stop the movement for liberation in El Salvador. And what is the most powerful movement in El Salvador today? The FMLN. That's right, the very movement we tried to destroy.
And then there is Iraq. We have definitively lost that war just as we lost the Vietnam War in January of 1968 but we remained for seven more years allowing tens of thousands more of our troops to die together with millions of Vietnamese and Cambodians.
Let us compare and contrast these situations with the Cuban Revolution. In December of 1956 Fidel Castro and his tiny invasion force landed the yacht Granma on the Cuban shore at Los Cayuelos. The Cuban Dictator Batista had 50,000 troops, an air force, a navy and a killer group of secret police. Fidel's invasion was discovered, attacked and surrounded. Few of the invaders were alive. Castro was lying flat on his back in a cane field covered with sugar cane leaves. With him was Universo Sanchez, and Dr. Faustino Perez Hernandez.
To his knowledge Casto's invasion force was now limited to the three of them. He was now Commander in Chief of exactly two rebels. Castro whispered to his two available fighters, "We are winning…Victory will be ours."
This message to his two troops was not blind bravado. Fidel knew that the people of Cuba were sick and tired of the Batista rule and that they would join his forces. His powerful faith and confidence were based in reality not fantasy.
On the contrary, our mad venture into Iraq with 140,000 troops plus the surge, plus 100,000 mercenaries has failed completely. Why? The people of Iraq don't want us there. The horrendous disaster of the mendacious Cheney and Bush is that they created a death dealing fantasy totally unrelated to reality as they march on blindly to an even more monstrous calamity in Iran. We must stop them before they kill again.
Listen to Blase's program: WORLD FOCUS, 10:00-11:00 AM Sundays, KPFK, Los Angeles, 90.7 FM (Santa Barbara, 98.7 FM).
Internationally, pod cast is available 24/7 on <www.kpfk.org>.
<www.blasesblog.blogspot.com>
Why We Lose
Why is it that we have lost the Indochina War and every conflict since that disaster. In each case we fought in opposition to the will of the vast majority of the people we attacked.
We sent an army of mercenaries to overthrow the government of Nicaragua in the 1980's killing 40,000, and who is ruling that country today? The Sandinistas. We spent billions and killed 80,000 people to stop the movement for liberation in El Salvador. And what is the most powerful movement in El Salvador today? The FMLN. That's right, the very movement we tried to destroy.
And then there is Iraq. We have definitively lost that war just as we lost the Vietnam War in January of 1968 but we remained for seven more years allowing tens of thousands more of our troops to die together with millions of Vietnamese and Cambodians.
Let us compare and contrast these situations with the Cuban Revolution. In December of 1956 Fidel Castro and his tiny invasion force landed the yacht Granma on the Cuban shore at Los Cayuelos. The Cuban Dictator Batista had 50,000 troops, an air force, a navy and a killer group of secret police. Fidel's invasion was discovered, attacked and surrounded. Few of the invaders were alive. Castro was lying flat on his back in a cane field covered with sugar cane leaves. With him was Universo Sanchez, and Dr. Faustino Perez Hernandez.
To his knowledge Casto's invasion force was now limited to the three of them. He was now Commander in Chief of exactly two rebels. Castro whispered to his two available fighters, "We are winning…Victory will be ours."
This message to his two troops was not blind bravado. Fidel knew that the people of Cuba were sick and tired of the Batista rule and that they would join his forces. His powerful faith and confidence were based in reality not fantasy.
On the contrary, our mad venture into Iraq with 140,000 troops plus the surge, plus 100,000 mercenaries has failed completely. Why? The people of Iraq don't want us there. The horrendous disaster of the mendacious Cheney and Bush is that they created a death dealing fantasy totally unrelated to reality as they march on blindly to an even more monstrous calamity in Iran. We must stop them before they kill again.
Listen to Blase's program: WORLD FOCUS, 10:00-11:00 AM Sundays, KPFK, Los Angeles, 90.7 FM (Santa Barbara, 98.7 FM).
Internationally, pod cast is available 24/7 on <www.kpfk.org>.
<www.blasesblog.blogspot.com>
