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H. Thomas Hayden
recently concluded over 35 years of service,
which included the Agency for International
Development, the Marine Corps, defense industry
and the Pentagon. His specialties are Intelligence,
Counterinsurgency Operations, Counter-terrorism,
and Joint Concepts Development and Experimentation.
His Marine Corps assignments have included
command of two separate battalions; AC/S G-2,
4th MARDIV & AC/S G-2 FMFEurope; Branch Head,
HQMC, Special Operations and Low Intensity
Conflict (SO/LIC); Special Assistant to the
Assistant Secretary of Defense for SO/LIC;
and, Senior Program Analysts at HQMC with
the Joint Staff and DoD at the Pentagon. Overseas
assignments included Vietnam, Japan & Okinawa,
Europe, Central America, Saudi Arabia and
Kuwait, Somalia, Singapore, Philippines, and
Colombia. He has an MBA (Pepperdine) and an
MA in International Relations (University
of Southern California). He has written two
books and is working on a third.
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October 19, 2004
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We are now only days away from a national election that will decide the future place in the world for U.S. foreign policy, and our national security policy. The future of Iraq and the whole Middle East are at stake. We have to ask ourselves: Do we want to be a world leader, or join the ranks of France and Germany on the heap of the inconsequential in world affairs?
Any discussions today of whether we should have gone into Iraq are totally irrelevant. We are there and we need to finish the job. It is vitally important to the foreign policy of the United States that we succeed in Iraq. Failure is not an option.
It would seem that someone in the U.S. Central Command has finally come to realize that appeasement only begets more violence. The communist insurgencies around the world in the 1960s and 1970s should have taught us that insurgents only want to negotiate when they are losing.
I was more than a little surprised when the Marines were forced to pull out of Falluja last April. Now the Marines are back, and if the political hacks in Washington, D.C. will let them finish the job, we may just kill many of the foreign fighters, and win a few friends in Falluja in the process.
It was a big mistake to quit when the Marines had the insurgents up against the river with no escape. It may have sent the wrong message -- make it tough on the Americans and they will quit.
It was NOT tough on the battlefield, it was tough for the weak-kneed “girlymen” who write for the Saturday Evening Post or the New York Times, or all those arm chair would-be soldiers who know nothing about combat. Now we have to go back and finish the job. How many times did we do this, over and over again in Vietnam?
Today, U.S. tank gunfire and air strikes are pounding the insurgent stronghold in Falluja. Ground combat units are preparing to push into the insurgent strong holds. It is reported that U.S. forces stepped up attacks around Falluja when “peace talks” between the Iraqi government and the Falluja clerics broke down. Reportedly, Falluja leaders rejected interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s demand to hand over the “foreign terrorists,” including the Jordanian Abu Musab al Zarqawi.
Let me see if I have this straight. The Sunnis in Falluja want to keep fighting for a foreign extremist. What do the so-called Islamic leaders in the Sunni triangle, refusing to negotiate with the U.S. and interim Iraqi government, expect to accomplish?
They are surround by the Kurds to the north, the Shiites to the south & east and unsupportive Arab governments to the west. One would think that someone would wise up and try to negotiate a better deal with the Americans before they leave, and the Sunnis have to face the vengeful Kurds and the Shiites.
If anyone thinks the Sunni radicals in Falluja are going to win anything, they must be betting on John Kerry to save them. Maybe he will let all Iraqi Sunnis immigrate to the U.S. after the war. Maybe he will even go to Falluja and talk to the insurgents.
The headlines in today’s papers are very informative, for those who are not so blind that they refuse to see. Five Christian churches bombed in Baghdad. Zarqawi and his Tawid and Jihad groups pledge to support the Al Qaida strategy. Car bomb next to police recruiting office kills scores of Iraqi police recruits. Bomb kills dozens at market place.
Who are the terrorists and insurgents really fighting - U.S. military forces or Iraqis who seek freedom from criminal gangs and foreign terrorists?
It is now pretty much evident that John Kerry did not receive an Honorable Discharge from the Navy. It is incomprehensible to me that the liberal news media has no comment on this. I just cannot see why so many Democrats do not see through Kerry’s polished skills at debating and look at his voting record, or his history as Navy officer and a traitor to his fellow servicemen and women.
Kerry says he defended his country as a young man. Defended the U.S. from what - a Viet Cong sampan fleet attack on Santa Monica Beach?
I believe Kerry to be a phony, a coward and a traitor.
I know his trip into Cambodia was phony when he said that his boat was ordered into Cambodia by President Richard Nixon, when Nixon was not even in office yet. He said he went 100 miles up river from his normal patrol area, into Cambodia. He had to pass a number of South Vietnamese outposts who would have easily tried to warn any American straying into Cambodia.
Kerry is a coward for skipping out on his shipmates who had to stay for a year to cover his incomplete tour of duty. It is irrational to me for any explanation as to why any Naval officer, with no lost time to superficial scratches, would skip out on his crew and fellow officers.
Kerry is a traitor for the lies he told about our troops in Vietnam, his visit with the North Vietnamese communist while still a Navy reserve officer, and the extra pain and suffering he caused the POWs in Hanoi.
It does not surprise me that a senior North Vietnamese officer has praised the work Kerry and his associates did in the protests at home. Did you know that John Kerry is in the Hanoi Hall of Fame?
Please do not put Jane Fonda in the same category as Kerry. I know Jane Fonda and Fonda did what she did to oppose the war. Hell, we all opposed war. Jane Fonda has apologized for some of the things she did and things she said that hurt the Americans fighting in Vietnam. Kerry has NEVER apologized for his treacherous actions
Mr. Kerry, I knew the Cambodia and South Vietnamese border on the Mekong River. I have been there. And, you are no small boat driver who would go into Cambodia.
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© 2004 H. Thomas Hayden. All opinions
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