Monday, July 27, 2009

Obama Says Victory Is Not The Goal

President Barack Obama: "I'm always worried about using the word 'victory,' because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur. . . So when you have a non-state actor, a shadowy operation like Al Qaeda, our goal is to make sure they can't attack the United States."


Imagine an American Football game pitting two of the strongest teams in the league against each other. One is known for its powerful, hard-hitting game, and decisive victories, and the other is known for disrupting offenses and defenses with trick plays and unexpected strategies. In a news conference, before the big match-up, the head coach of the stronger team comes out and says, "I am careful about the word 'victory' because it brings to mind the notion that at the end of the game the other team is down in the dumps as they march into the locker room with their heads down. So, since our opponent is a team that is unlike most of our opponents, using unexpected strategies and trick plays, our goal is to just make sure they don't score a touchdown."

Or better yet, let's imagine going into a game of chess with the intention of not necessarily wishing for the opponent to feel the sting of defeat, should you be victorious. Your strategy, as a result, simply becomes one of just making sure they don't capture your queen.

Could you imagine playing backgammon spending all your time blocking the opponent, but not necessarily moving your own pieces off the board, mainly because you don't want your opponent to necessarily win, but you don't wish to win yourself either because you don't want your opponent to feel the sting of defeat?

What Obama is saying, by his statement regarding the word "Victory," and how we should approach the War on Terror (oops, didn't the Liberals say we have to call it a man-made disaster, or something idiotic like that?) is we should play defense, without the use of its counterpart, offense.

If you play offense, then you might be victorious, and if you are victorious it brings upon the opposition the horrid feeling of defeat, and surely we don't want an enemy that desires each and every one of us dead, or converted to Islam, defeated. It might make us feel guilty that they were beaten. It invokes an image of the poor, murderous crazy people coming down from their caves in Pakistan, or wherever Osama bin Laden is hiding, in a forlorn manner to sign whatever it is that proclaims they've been beaten.

Oh, the inhumanity of it all!

I read a piece recently by Warner Todd Huston that added another dimension, as well. Warner, at the beginning of the piece, asked, "When I say 'victory,' what do you think of?"

The answer to Huston's question, for me, is pretty obvious. Victory is winning, accomplishment over a foe, a "warm feeling of worthy accomplishment and an assumption of gaining the accolades that accompanies victory."

I wonder how many people are like Obama, where upon hearing the word "victory," they immediately conjure up in their mind feelings of how the poor loser was beaten down by defeat. I wonder if they really do feel guilt, if they truly garner such a bad feeling that on the other end of the victory was a losing party - a loser - a beaten down person or group trying to grapple with the horrid agony of defeat.

When there are winners, there are losers. That is a fact of life. Losers, if they don't like losing, need to either learn how to be winners, or go play another game. However, people who think like Obama (we'll call them "liberals"), have the thought process that nobody should feel like losers, even a blood thirsty enemy. And in order for there to be no losers, there can't be any winners.

Preposterous.

If, in a game of chess, you are determined to just make sure the opponent never takes your queen, but you never make an aggressive effort to place your opponent in check-mate, eventually, you will lose. You can only play defense without offense for so long. The enemy, regardless of your feelings about "victory," has the goal to defeat you. Simply making them not attack the United States, but not achieving victory over them, gives them the opportunity to regroup and strike again on another day. An enemy like the Islamic Jihad will continue striking, over and over again, until eventually they are victorious. The only way to stop them from eventually reaching their goal is to defeat them. And when the enemy is defeated, it is called a "victory" for the winning side. "Victory" is the only word one can use. To use anything else is to leave yourself open to future attacks by an undefeated enemy.

Sympathy for the enemy encourages the enemy to rise up and strike again another day, because whether you like it or not, they have no sympathy for you.

On a side note, a point also brought up by Warner Todd Huston in his article, Barack Obama's statement regarding Japan's World War II surrender also shows his ignorance of history. Emperor Hirohito did not sign the document that finalized the surrender of Japan to General MacArthur. The signing of the declaration of surrender was performed by Japan’s Foreign Minister, Shigemitsu, and one of Japan's generals, Umezu.

Will The Press call him on that? I guarantee you if Bush had said such a thing, they'd have been all over it.

Obama's statement about victory is more apologetic than the words you'd expect from the Commander in Chief of American Forces. He can't get his history right, disrespects his own country, and has this guilt-ridden desire to go around apologizing for America's successes. It makes me sick. This attitude places the nation in a very vulnerable position. The enemy, based on the President's statements, are fast realizing that Obama does not desire victory. In other words, he refuses to play the worldwide chess game in an offensive manner. So, all the enemy has to do is keep striking, over and over again, until they eventually break through the line-up of pawns, knights, and bishops. "Victory" will be theirs, I am sure they are beginning to believe, if only they remain persistent, and on the offensive.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Obama: 'Victory' Not Necessarily Goal in Afghanistan - Fox News, Politics

Obama's Anti-America - American Daily Review, Warner Todd Huston

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