When Second Biggest Cities Fall To The Bad Guys…

The Military Industrial Complex and its faithful media spokesmen are warning that the only way to stop ISIS from overrunning America and beheading everyone is to spend more money… on the Military Industrial Complex. Martin Feldman, a right-wing kook with a respectable-sounding pedigree, was chairman of Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers from 1982-1984. This week he was clamoring for more war in the Middle East and demanding Obama "significantly increase military spending." An anti-tax nut, no doubt he would like to see more missiles come at the expense of unnecessary frills like healthcare and public education.

As a result of our defence policies, America’s enemies do not fear us and our friends do not trust us. We have disappointed the Ukrainians, alienated the Israelis and the Egyptians, and left our allies in eastern Europe and in east Asia wondering how we would deal with future threats from Russia, North Korea or China.

Mr Obama is not likely to change his attitude about the effective use of America’s armed forces or his willingness to increase defence spending. But the next president should make it a central priority to rebuild our military budget and use it to strengthen our role in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

ISIS isn on the move. Yesterday they overran a big military base, captured more weapons, sent more U.S.-trained Iraqi soldiers running for their lives and threatened Baghdad again. And they still hold the second-biggest city in the country Mosul (ancient Ninevah, the capital of the Assyrian Empire), which has a population of 1,800,000, so a bit smaller than Houston and a bit bigger than Philadelphia.

I'm old enough to remember when the U.S. mission in Vietnam was advising and then training and then full scale war and then training again. All that training lead first to the loss of South Vietnam's second largest city, Da Nang, and eventually to a takeover of the entire country. Back then they were the enemy, Hitler, Satan, the end of civilization; now they're dependable trading partners, good friends and a wonderful place for tourists and investors.

From Rick Perlstein's new book, The Invisible Bridge:

Vessels arrived at their intended destinations, coastal cities like Qui Nhon, Tuy Hoa, and Nha Trang; deperate passengers discovered these "safe havens" had already been abandoned to the Communists. Da Nang was the nation's second-largest city, formerly home to the mighty United States air base, once the busiest airport in the world. A mighty battle was supposedly underway to save the beachside metropolis. Lazy American reporters, deployed the usual clichés to describe the fighting: "juggernaut," "blitzkrieg." A skeptical writer, though, quoted a French observer on the scene: "There never was a last battle for Da Nang." Another eyewitness broadened the description: "There is no war." South Vietnam was already lost.

The U.S. trained-- at the cost of hundreds of millions of U.S. tax dollars-- South Vietnamese army refused to fight. They threw away their uniforms and ran away. Some killed their officers; others went on rampages and murdered civilians. Many pushed civilians aside and grabbed spots on evacuation boats, planes and helicopters and now live in Orange County. When you read about U.S. trained and equipped Iraqi soldiers fleeing from ISIS, remember-- this was hardly the first time the U.S. wasted some much on idiotic, unwinnable strategies in cultures we didn't begin to fathom.

And when Congress votes to spend more U.S. treasure on this vote against reelecting them, regardless of which party they're from. You should start by seeing if your Member of Congress backed the McKeon amendment to train and equip "moderate" Syrian terrorists. 85 Democrats and 71 Republicans voted NO. 273 Members of Congress voted YES. Every single one of them should be defeated in November. My lame warmonger congressman, Adam Schiff, voted for it and there is no way I would vote for him. How about your own congresscritter? Check here and see how he or she voted and take the appropriate action.