President Obama’s West Point Speech on War in Afghanistan–Cadet Honor Code–Generals Marshall and MacArthur Speeches On Peace and War–Duty, Honor, Country
Cadet Honor Code
“A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.”
http://www.usma.edu/committees/honor/info/main.htm
“…Yours is the profession of arms, the will to win, the sure knowledge that in war there is no substitute for victory, that if you lose, the Nation will be destroyed, that the very obsession of your public service must be Duty, Honor, Country.
Others will debate the controversial issues, national and international, which divide men’s minds. But serene, calm, aloof, you stand as the Nation’s war guardians, as its lifeguards from the raging tides of international conflict, as its gladiators in the arena of battle. For a century and a half you have defended, guarded and protected its hallowed traditions of liberty and freedom, of right and justice.
Let civilian voices argue the merits or demerits of our processes of government. Whether our strength is being sapped by deficit financing indulged in too long, by federal paternalism grown too mighty, by power groups grown too arrogant, by politics grown too corrupt, by crime grown too rampant, by morals grown too low, by taxes grown too high, by extremists grown too violent; whether our personal liberties are as firm and complete as they should be.
These great national problems are not for your professional participation or military solution. Your guidepost stands out like a tenfold beacon in the night: Duty, Honor, Country.
You are the leaven which binds together the entire fabric of our national system of defense. From your ranks come the great captains who hold the Nation’s destiny in their hands the moment the war tocsin sounds.
The long gray line has never failed us. Were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray, would rise from their white crosses, thundering those magic words: Duty, Honor, Country. …”
General Douglas MacArthur’s, Farewell Speech
Given to the Corps of Cadets at West Point, May 12, 1962
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/douglasmacarthurthayeraward.html
cnn – obama gives orders on afghanistan – is this his vietnam?
Obama: Send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan
Sen. Jon Kyl: Afghanistan exit strategy ‘the wrong way to go’ – 11/29/09
Obama prepares to announce Afghan surge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIAxyFEYT_M
Are More Troops Needed in Afghan War?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6IYcSdnKFk
Will Obama’s Afghanistan speech persuade skeptical Americans?
Obama to announce Afghanistan troop strategy Tuesday
Live: Obama’s Afghanistan strategy unveiled 1 of 2
Live: Obama’s Afghanistan strategy unveiled 2 of 2
At War with General Jack Keane
President Obama has a well deserved reputation for being a habitual liar.
Barack Obama – The Lying Fascist
The American people and West Point cadets do not tolerate liars very well.
What must the cadets and American people be thinking as they listen to the President explain his strategy and course of action in Afghanistan for the second time!
Will they even believe a word he says?
The vast majority of the American people no longer believe or trust President Obama.
I suspect the speech will not be about victory in Afghanistan, but a set of milestones or a timetable for orderly withdrawal within three years or less.
The President can call it an exit strategy, an off ramp, or strategic withdrawal in Afghanistan, the American people will call it retreat and defeat, Obama R&D!
If it is, then the time has come to pull all the troops out of Afghanistan now.
There is no substitute for victory over the Taliban, al-Qaida, and their allies in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Obama’s speech will be compared to other important speeches about war and peace.
Two come immediately to mind.
One was given by then Secretary of State George C. Marshall at Harvard University on June 5, 1947 that lead to the Marshall Plan:
“…The truth of the matter is that Europe’s requirements for the next three or four years of foreign food and other essential products – principally from America – are somuch greater than her present ability to pay that she must have substantial additional help or face economic, social, and political deterioration of a very grave character.
The remedy lies in breaking the vicious circle and restoring the confidence of the European people in the economic future of their own countries and of Europe as awhole. The manufacturer and the farmer throughout wide areas must be able and willing to exchange their products for currencies the continuing value of which is not open to question. …”
Secretary of State George C. Marshall
Commencement address at Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts, June 5, 1947
http://www.usaid.gov/multimedia/video/marshall/marshallspeech.html
The other speech was given by General Douglas MacArthur:
“…On May 12, 1962, Five Star General Douglas MacArthur accepted the Sylvanus Thayer Award and delivered a remarkable speech to the corps of cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. Since 1958, the Association of Graduates of the United States Military Academy has presented the Sylvanus Thayer Award to an outstanding citizen of the United States whose service and accomplishments in the national interest exemplify personal devotion to the ideals expressed in the West Point motto, “Duty, Honor, Country.”
http://www.keytlaw.com/Greatwords/macarthur.htm
General Douglas MacArthur
Sylvanus Thayer Award Acceptance Address
“Duty, Honor, Country”
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/douglasmacarthurthayeraward.html
The irony is that General MacArthur was fired by President Truman for insubordination.
George C. Marshall after reviewing MacArthur’s statements agreed with President Truman that General MacArthur should have been fired even earlier.
“If we lose the war to Communism in Asia the fall of Europe is inevitable, win it and Europe most probably would avoid war and yet preserve freedom…. There is no substitute for victory.”
General MacArthur ended his military career with a Farwell speech to the Congress that concluded with these words:
“…I have just left your fighting sons in Korea. They have met all tests there, and I can report to you without reservation that they are splendid in every way.
It was my constant effort to preserve them and end this savage conflict honorably and with the least loss of time and a minimum sacrifice of life. Its growing bloodshed has caused me the deepest anguish and anxiety.
Those gallant men will remain often in my thoughts and in my prayers always.
I am closing my 52 years of military service. When I joined the Army, even before the turn of the century, it was the fulfillment of all of my boyish hopes and dreams. The world has turned over many times since I took the oath on the plain at West Point, and the hopes and dreams have long since vanished, but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barrack ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that “old soldiers never die; they just fade away.”
And like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty.
Good Bye.”
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/douglasmacarthurfarewelladdress.htm
The End of Douglas Macarthur
Truman Firing of MacArthur Hurt Approval Rating but Saved War With Red China
“…Few shared the president’s certitude. Public reaction was swift and furious. “The reaction was stupendous, the outcry from the American people shattering,” McCullough later wrote. Angry Republicans discussed impeaching the president. One Gallup poll showed 69 percent of Americans supported the general. Truman’s own approval rating would reach 23 percent that month, and did not rise above the low thirties while he was in office. Of course, time grants perspective, and he is generally ranked as one of the near-great presidents, in part because of his strong assertion of civilian control over the rogue general.”
http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/2009/04/09/truman-firing-of-macarthur-hurt-approval-rating-but-saved-war-with-red-china.html
Even with a teleprompter, I seriously doubt that President Obama’s speech will have the impact of either the General Marshall or General MacArthur speech.
I am afraid President Obama’s speech will only embolden those who attacked America on September 11, 2001 and their allies the Taliban.
He will apologize many times more for America, appease our enemies and read his way out of the hearts and minds of the American people.
President Obama will not fade away.
The American people want justice for those killed on September 11, 2001.
September 11, 2001
The time has come for the professional soldier to complete the mission and defeat Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and their supporters in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Remember the words of General MacArthur:
”In war there is no substitute for victory.”
In Afghanistan With the U.S. Marines & Afghan National Army
Women Marines: U.S. Employs Secret Weapon in …
U.S. Marines React To Ambush In Afghanistan
“I have just returned from visiting the Marines at the front, and there is not a finer fighting organization in the world!”
“Duty, Honor, Country. Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be.”
~General Douglas MacArthur
Background Articles and Videos
Thomas Barnett: The Pentagon’s new map for war and peace
The Pentagons New Map – Thomas Barnett lecture
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4689061169761152025
Conversations with History: Victor Davis Hanson
Discusses Obama’s Afghanistan Decision Part 1
Discusses Obama’s Afghanistan Decision Part 2
Discusses Obama’s Afghanistan Decision Part 3
Discusses Obama’s Afghanistan Decision Part 4
Taliban
“…The Taliban (Pashto: طالبان ṭālibān, meaning “students”), also Taleban, is a radical Sunni Islamist movement that governed Afghanistan from 1996 until late 2001, when all of its members were removed from power by NATO forces during Operation Enduring Freedom. It has regrouped since 2004 and revived as a strong insurgency movement governing at the local level and fighting a guerrilla war against the governments of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).[4] The movement is made up of members belonging to different ethnic Pashtun tribes,[5] along with a number of volunteers from nearby Islamic countries such as Uzbeks, Tajiks, Chechens, Arabs, Punjabis and others.[6][7][8] They operate in Afghanistan and the Frontier Tribal Areas of Pakistan, mainly around the Durand Line border.[9]
The Taliban movement is headed by Mullah Mohammed Omar, who is still in hiding. Mullah Omar’s original commanders were “a mixture of former small-unit military commanders and madrasah teachers,”[10] and the rank and file made up mostly of Afghan refugees who had studied at Islamic religious schools in Pakistan. The Taliban received valuable training, supplies and arms from the Pakistani government, particularly the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI),[11] and many recruits from madrasahs for Afghan refugees in Pakistan, primarily ones established by the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI).[12]
Although in control of Afghanistan’s capital (Kabul) and much or most of the country for five years, the Taliban regime, which called itself the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan”, gained diplomatic recognition from only three states: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. It has gained some amount of political control and acceptance in Pakistan’s border region, but recently lost one of its key leaders, Baitullah Mehsud, in a CIA assassination.[13]
The Taliban is today classified by security analysts as an “alternative government” in Afghanistan. It operates fifteen Sharia law courts in the country’s southern provinces handling civil and commercial cases and collects taxes on harvests in farming areas. The Taliban implemented one of the “strictest interpretation[s] of Sharia law ever seen in the Muslim world”, yet still occasionally updates its code of conduct.[14] In mid-2009, it established an ombudsman office in northern Kandahar, which has been described as a “direct challenge” to the ISAF.[15] …”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban
Al-Qaeda
“…Al-Qaeda (pronounced /ælˈkaɪdə/ or /ælˈkeɪdə/; Arabic: القاعدة, al-qāʿidah, “the base”), alternatively spelled al-Qaida and sometimes al-Qa’ida, is an Islamist group founded sometime between August 1988[5] and late 1989/early 1990.[6] It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless arm[7] and a fundamentalist Sunni movement calling for global jihad.
Al-Qaeda has attacked civilian and military targets in various countries, the most notable being the September 11 attacks in 2001. The US government responded by launching the War on Terrorism. Between 3,000 and 4,000 members of the network have been captured, and many thousands more killed on the front in Afghanistan.
Characteristic techniques include suicide attacks and simultaneous bombings of different targets.[8] Activities ascribed to it may involve members of the movement, who have taken a pledge of loyalty to Osama bin Laden, or the much more numerous “al-Qaeda-linked” individuals who have undergone training in one of its camps in Afghanistan or Sudan, but not taken any pledge.[9]
Al-Qaeda ideologues envision a complete break from the foreign influences in Muslim countries, and the creation of a new Islamic caliphate. Reported beliefs include that a Christian-Jewish alliance is conspiring to destroy Islam,[10] and that the killing of bystanders and civilians is religiously justified in jihad.
Its management philosophy has been described as “centralization of decision and decentralization of execution.”[11] Following the War on Terrorism, it is thought that al-Qaeda’s leadership has “become geographically isolated”, leading to the “emergence of decentralized leadership” of regional groups using the al-Qaeda “brand name.”[12][13]
…”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda
Truman Firing of MacArthur Hurt Approval Rating but Saved War With Red China
“…The decision was a long time coming. MacArthur, a former Army chief of staff, Medal of Honor winner, had commanded the Southwest Pacific Theatre in World War II, accepted Japan’s surrender, and oversaw that country’s occupation in the postwar years. When the Korean War broke out, MacArthur was put in command of United Nations forces against the North. MacArthur had mixed sometimes brilliant military strategy with public pronouncements that often bordered on (or flat out were) insubordination, issuing his own foreign policy dictates and trying to push the United States into a broader war with Red China.
Matters came to a head on April 5, 1951. House Minority Leader Joe Martin read a letter he had received weeks earlier from MacArthur discussing the situation in Asia. “Virtually all that he said was bound to provoke Truman,” the historian David McCullough later wrote. Chinese nationalist forces under Chiang Kai-shek should be committed to the Korean war, MacArthur wrote. “Here [in Asia] we fight Europe’s war with arms while the diplomats there still fight it with words,” MacArthur had written. “If we lose the war to Communism in Asia the fall of Europe is inevitable, win it and Europe most probably would avoid war and yet preserve freedom…. There is no substitute for victory.”
http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/2009/04/09/truman-firing-of-macarthur-hurt-approval-rating-but-saved-war-with-red-china.html
Charlie Rose – U.S. MILITARY ACADEMY AT WEST POINT,…
United States Military Academy, West Point
http://www.usma.edu/about.asp
Cold War: Marshall Plan – part 1/5
Cold War: Marshall Plan – part 2/5
Cold War: Marshall Plan – part 3/5
Cold War: Marshall Plan – part 4/5
Cold War: Marshall Plan – part 5/5
Marshall Plan 60th Anniversary – VOA Story
Europe in Ruins and the Marshall Plan
Korean War – PART 20, MacArthur is Fired, 6.25
