One of the great ongoing, continuing fears of the dwindling band of victorious Cold War warriors, is how off- base American intellectuals are in their thought processes.
For example, two of America’s greatest intellectuals, Professor Scott Galloway and Fareed Zakaria discussed the Israel-HAMAS War on Galloway’s podcast.
The following is the relevant dialog: “ GALLOWAY:I increasingly believe that the geopolitical or the catastrophic geopolitical decision of the last 50 years will be seen as our invasion of Iraq.
ZAKARIA-Our weariness, the resources expended where like someone has gotten their eyebrows burned and we just don't want to get near any hot surface any longer in the Middle East, that whether it's taking out a natural buffer to Iran, this incredible vacuum that we will in the fullness of time look back on going too far. Going into Afghanistan, absolutely justification. But going into Iraq will be seen as probably the greatest geopolitical mistake in US history of it since the last 50 years.
GALLOWAY-Yeah, I think there's no question. It was bigger than Vietnam,
ZAKARIA-I don't know, but it certainly was a massive, massive mistake. And it represents two things. One was this was the kind of peak American hubris. This was an American-dominated world. Thiswas the post-Cold War world. We bestrode the world like a colossus. And then 9-11 happens and we are like a wounded giant. And we start lashing out and we lash out and we totally militarize the conflict. I wrote a piece for Newsweek two weeks after 9-11 called Why They Hate Us.And we're trying to explain the roots of this kind of Islamic rage. And the main point I was trying to get across is look, the main thing we have to understand is this is a kind of ideological, civilizational, political, struggle.D on't turn it into a military struggle
Because that's what they want. Again, Osama bin Laden once said, you know,it's so telling that he thought about it this way.He said, if we go anywhere, if a small band of us go anywhere in the world and raise the flag of Al Qaeda, we can be sure the American army will come thundering in. That's the goal. That's what they're trying to do is to draw you into these places that are quagmires. Even Afghanistan.
I think we massively misread how we should handle it. We should have gone in there, got rid of the Taliban, and then left. These places, when you try to bring order in a country, what we always forget is we are the foreigners.
And you can have all the best intentions in the world, but it's the easiest thing in the world to arouse nationalist opposition against an occupying foreigner.
We have understood that. I think we will be in a much better place today.”…PROF G PODCAST.”
That dialog is an exercise in sophomoric intellectual poppycock. It intimates that geostrategic failures are products of inexorable Greek tragedies.
This Blogger was trained and tutored by minds honed by World War II; they would have declared that there are no geostrategic failures, only failures of Leadership.
The intellectuals would have you believe that the Iraq catastrophe was caused by George W. Bush not sacrificing his daughter Iphigeneia to the Gods.
Au contraire, the catastrophe in Iraq was caused by one man, Paul Bremer, who disbanded the 400,000 man Iraqi Army, on May 23, 2003, WITHOUT PAY but with their GUNS.
All geostrategic failures are caused by the stupidity of the Leadership on the ground.
The British geostrategic failure at Gallipoli was, according to Major Atlee, the last British officer to leave the failed geostrategic landing, was the cowardice of the British admirals.
The British capitulation at Singapore, during World War II, was because the British general in command failed to think the Japanese could move rapidly through the Malay jungle. They did, using bicycles.
The Spanish invasion of Aztec Mexico should have been a geostrategic failure, but the leader of the invasion was Cortes; sending a small army of Americans, 10,000, to invade and conquer Mexico, via a landing at Vera Cruz, should have been a geostrategic failure; but the leaders of that small army were Winfield Scott and Robert E. Lee.
World War II was a geostrategic failure for Imperial Japan, mainly because it’s Pearl Harbor Attack occurred, when all of America’s carriers were not in harbor but at sea.
The Roman Conquest of Celtic Britain, was not a geostrategic failure, because it defeated Queen Boudica in battle; the Roman invasion of Germany was a geostrategic failure; because it’s dumb general marched three legions into an ambush in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest.
America's defense of South Korea was a geostrategic failure until General MacArthur landed his army at Inchon; America's war in South Korea was a geostrategic defeat, after the Communist Chinese intervention, until General Matthew Ridgway strapped a grenade to his uniform, informing the Communist Chinese he would not be taken alive and led a ferocious counter attack.
Vietnam is a geostrategic defeat because America did not produce a Maurice Challe to defeat the Viet Minh.
Seemingly the whole purpose of modern American intellectual thought is to discount the importance of Leadership.
Current American Liberal thought maintains that a transgender may be the greatest leader in the room. That may well be true; but what current American Liberals discount is that the greatest Leader in the room may well be a bigot, a sexist and a homophobe.
No great leader should be discounted; for to discount great leadership is a sure path to geostrategic failures.
In the 21st Century, the Republic, in order to survive, will need every great Leader it can find and then some.
“Even Afghanistan. I think we massively misread how we should handle it. We should have gone in there, got rid of the Taliban, and then left. These places, when you try to bring order in a country, what we always forget is we are the foreigners.”
The intellectuals are trying to rewrite History, or at the minimum, rewrite the lessons of History.
The Republic failed in Afghanistan, not because it tried to bring ORDER to the Sunni Muslims of Afghanistan; but because it tried to social engineer the Sunni Muslim culture into a Nancy Pelosi version of Modernity.
On June 26, 2011, this Blogger published this: “.... in Afghanistan, America did not fail; the philosophy of modernity failed.
The great cultural shock of this Afghan War is that the majority of Afghan fighting men, regardless of what VANITY FAIR, Hillary Clinton, Tina Fey, Oprah, Anderson Cooper, Samantha Power, Mrs. Jay Leno, Lady Gaga, Tina Brown proselytize, do not want modernity. In fact, they so do not want modernity they will fight, kill and die to keep it out of their children's lives.
….This Blogger suggests that American modernity learn its lesson and end its sway at the Hindu Kush, for the great surge of 21st century modernity has crested in Kabul…..What this debacle in Afghanistan should have taught us and our leadership is this-there are discernible limits to the spiritual and emotional satisfaction that modernity brings. Modernity did not and does not satisfy the Afghan fighting man….…
One of the key disturbing weaknesses of America's State and Defense Establishments is the lack of atavistic wisdom. The American Ruling Elite is full of modern men and women; they know lecture halls, TV studios, seminars, book tours, and MSNBC hosts. They have never been exposed to fundamentalism, except academically. ……GERRY MAXEY”
America is failing in 2023, because Joe Biden is a bad leader, full of Bad karma, and limited smarts. Bad Leadership ALWAYS causes geostrategic failures.
In the coming decades of this century, American intellectuals will indeed prove themselves foreigners, to every culture which values traditional values.
In the coming decades, the devotees of the ancient ways and feuds will always prevail over the SWIFTIES, the fans of Taylor Swift.
General Ridgway with grenade
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