RAMANAM
In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen.
Countrymen,
A West Pointer writes:
General Westmoreland just passed on. I remember him as the exceptional Commander of the 101st Airborne Division, the Army’s first rate general reserve at Fort Campbell; as the hard working, visionary MACV commander in Vietnam when I first arrived in 1965; and the excellent Army Chief of Staff that I worked for in the Pentagon.
Unfortunately, General Westmoreland and his follow-on MACV commander lost the war in Vietnam, not to the VC or NVA, but to the American press. In 1965-66 in Vietnam, the American press was with us constantly in the operational areas. During my subsequent tours in 1968-69 and 1971, I never saw a newsman or photographer in an operational area. The news coming to the United States was generated from the capital city. It lacked true appreciation for what was happening elsewhere. I see the same trend going on in Iraq and wonder how much time we have until the American press wins again.
Another West Pointer responds:
The Terrorists have studied our experience in Viet Nam and understand fully that the Center of Gravity for the American people is the press.
I respond:
I am skeptical that the center of gravity for the American people is the press, and thus, that the terrorists (I prefer “thugs” commandeered or reared and driven by charlatan clergy) understand the pressure points of our or any other English-speaking culture, including — and recently with auspicious drama — India.
Nor am I inclined to second the notion that the situation today is comparable to that in Vietnam. History does not repeat itself, a renowned Spaniard’s historico-philosophical musings notwithstanding. The dimension of history is constantly fresh and freshening.
If demonstration of this fact is desired, one may return to the location of a memorable personal past. That past will not be re-experienced because it is not there. What is there may be experienced, but that experience will not be the one associated with that location and residing in one’s memory. What we experience of the past is our memories, not objective reality with which we relate creatively.
Our Army, also, is fresh — meaning both continuous and unprecedented, manifesting the constant, irreducible polarity of form and dynamics — at every moment and in every situation.
The immensity and the enormity of the enemy in our front — in our midst, rather — are unprecedented. Not since the High Middle Ages (1100-1300) has Latin/Germanic Culture, of which we are members, been threatened by an asymmetrical enemy of such determination and puissance as we have faced since 1979.
Significantly, of course, it is the same enemy — false clergy emerging in Arab/Pan African lands — that Latin/Germanic Culture faced successfully during the High and even Late Middle Ages — right up to the Gates of Vienna, which are the referent of Martin Luther’s famous hymn Ein’ Feste Burg [A Mighty Fortress is Our God]).
But equally significantly, the scale, the distribution and the operational capability of the present enemy exceed that of the Moslem Army during the High and Late Middle Ages. The situation today is fresh and even novel and, as before, life-threatening.
And, whereas the Pan-European response to Caliphism during the High Middle Ages and beyond succeeded in keeping open communications between Europe, the Levant and the Orient, the English-speaking/Pan-European response to Caliphism today is succeeding in keeping communications open world-wide — and will continue doing so until the last false clergyman — who are the head of this Islamist snake — is in his grave.
This effort is seconded by the world-wide centuries-defining consolidation of Indian/American wishes. India, United States and Russia, three brothers of the same mother, independently and jointly, but without fundamental conflict, now drive the global agenda, and for centuries to come.
The center of gravity at any moment of history is proper conduct. Additionally, proper conduct has indomitable power to propagate itself — so much as to shape any situation, including those not of its own making.
Our situation is fresh and even novel and our Army in Iraq and Afghanistan has been not merely responding to but creating it, to my sublime happiness and gratitude.
Update 1: Richard Fernandez: Leadership Qualities Needed Now
AMDG – VICTORY
