Former Sen Edwards Really Torques the Geek!

The Geek lived and worked in North Carolina for awhile back in the days that Senator Jesse Helms infuriated most of the country while delighting many Tarheels.

The Geek was not one of those amused by thinking that Senator Helms was a SOB, but he's our SOB. One major fact in favor of Helms is that he never would have stooped to the level of asininity demonstrated by former Senator and present presidential wannabe, John Edwards.

Apparently the good looking dude with the expensive haircut and gigabuck mansion wants not only to write off nearly four thousand Americans killed in Iraq as some sort of bad investment. That's not enough for the spine and brain challenged ex-North Carolina senator. Not by a long way.

He is demanding that Congress repeat the disastrous experiences of former Congresses during the War Between the States (that's the Civil War for you Yankees) and the Vietnam War. Edwards challenged the congresswallahs to "force" the current administration to withdraw "forty or fifty thousand" troops immediately with the rest to follow. Or so quoth the Boston Globe on-line: http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2007/09/edwards_calls_o.html

Edwards utterly indifferent to what might happen in Iraq following the departure of American troops quipping, "I don't think anyone can predict with confidence what will happen in Iraq.

Get a grip Senator Blow dry!

The Geek has already predicted what must come with the dreary predictability of prognosticating that hurricanes bring high winds. So have many others in the military, diplomatic, and academic communities. Even the UN SecGen has said his view of Iraq following an overly rapid US withdrawal was "gloomy."

To make it simple for the lame brained ex-senator and his foreign policy advisers to understand what is going to occur, here is the future of Iraq in baby words. Death. Blood. More death. More blood. Bombs. More bombs. Folks running for their lives. Run. Run. Run. Invaders come. Can we say Iran? Syria? Turkey? How about Saudi Arabia? More blood. More killing. More running. More bombs.

How about it, Senator? Do you get the general picture?

In the past, Edwards has announced screwball notions such as honoring our dead in Iraq last Memorial Day by demanding the US quit the war. Now he has outdone his previous efforts.

If the congresswallahs were to take up his challenge and seek to manage the war, which at least some wish to do, they would be walking down the same path as congressional Republicans did during the War Between the States and the Democrats in congress during the closing days of the Vietnam War.

Because knowledge of history is not a strong point among the lawyers and others in congress, the Geek will consider only the second example of war managing by political committee.

Without going through the dismal litany of documentation, of congressional move and administrative counter move, suffice it to say that not only did the "date certain" resolutions and amendments to military funding acts force US troops out too early, in the last analysis, Congress caused the fall of South Vietnam.

You read that right. Congress caused the fall of South Vietnam.

How did the congresswallahs pull off that trick?

Simple. The US had repeatedly and formally promised the Saigon government that, if push came to shove, the US would provide logistics and air support. That was only right and proper. We had trained and equipped the South Vietnamese Army to fight an American style war--heavy on materiel and firepower, particularly air delivered firepower.

When the shove came, when the well-equipped and trained North Vietnamese army went on the attack, the South Vietnamese had roughly six shells for each of their artillery pieces. (That's about twenty seconds worth of shooting for the 105mm howitzer of the day.) They had no air force worthy of the name. No reserves of equipment, spare parts, munitions.

Nonetheless the South Vietnamese troops fought well. That is until they had nothing left with which to fight.

Saigon screamed for help. The government of South Vietnam demanded the US live up to the commitments it gave in order to gain the semblance of peace at Paris.

The administration of Gerald Ford agreed. Congress, to its everlasting shame, said, "NO." Using the power of the purse, the congresswallahs banned any funds being used to support or provide material assistance beyond a token level.

By this act of supreme moral and intellectual cowardliness, Congress not only flipped the ultimate bird at the sixty thousand Americans who died in the war, it delivered South Vietnam to the less than tender mercies of the Hanoi Politburo.

In a circular logic of self-fulfilling prophecy, Edward Kennedy, then as now a senator from Massachusetts, proclaimed South Vietnam was non-viable and voted to make it such.

Now, John Edwards wants, no, demands, Congress do the same in Iraq.

A note to congesswallahs: Your predecessors covered themselves (and the nation) with shame a little more than thirty years ago. If you choose to do the same today in a war which should never have been fought but now must be prosecuted to assure that we and the Iraqis do not lose, History Geek and other well-educated and insightful historians will be there to write the final verdict upon you.

Get a grip on this. It won't be pretty.