Nostalgia for Viet Nam

"Nostalgie de la boue" is a French phrase for "nostalgia for the mud". This site explains the meaning of the phrase:

"Nostalgie de la boue" means ascribing higher spiritual values to people and cultures considered "lower" than oneself, the romanticization of the faraway primitive which is also the equivalent of the lower class close to home.

The Left does not like to see America triumphant. They see America, not as a force for good in the world, but as a source of evil, corruption and greed. Why this is so has to do, I believe, with the structure of American society. America is unabashedly capitalist, and capitalism – the lure of gain through commerce – exemplifies greed verses the illusory selflessness of socialism. The fact that the result of socialism is typically misery while capitalism – on the whole – produces abundance (although unequal abundance) does not affect the adherence of the theorist to his or her theory that socialism is superior.

Nor does it effect the love of the Left for pimitive, backward cultures ... cultures that if their standards were adopted by mainsteam America would be considered violent, sexist, racist and repressive.

With this in mind, let us examine Viet Nam in the rear view mirror and Afghanistan looking forward.

Our efforts in Afghanistan are beginning to hint at a re-run of Viet Nam for the Left in this country. Viet Nam was the Left’s definition of the “bad war.” According to the Left's version of history, it was a war against "freedom fighting" anti-imperialists in the North versus American support of a corrupt military dictatorship in the South, all for the purpose of enforcing American hegemony throughout the world. The government we were supporting was corrupt, our soldiers were blood crazed killers who raped, pillaged and plundered as a matter of policy. We dealt death indiscriminately from the air when we were not dealing it retail on the ground. We could not win and had no business being there even if we could. In the war between democracy and communism, the Left chose Communism because it opposed American success, our culture and our economic system.

So the Democrat Congress turned off the money supply and the rest is history … a history of re-education camps, the “drowning fields” of boat people and killing fields of Cambodia. But never mind the aftermath, the Left felt good about bringing American pride down and dragging it through the mud, memorializing the 50,000 American killed in a tombstone in Washington: a black granite testimony to self induced futility.

In firm control of Congress and the White House, the desire to humble America is again ascendant. It may be too late to lose Iraq – although never say die – but America’s effort in Afghanistan can still be thwarted.

Already we have a very similar cast of characters. Afghanistan’s government and elections have been deemed corrupt. America’s military efforts have produced civilian casualties which, with the right publicity can be blown up into war crimes. We are attempting to impose a lifestyle which is not compatible with some local mores – such as supporting the rights of women. Our casualties are growing and every death builds the case of our withdrawal. In the end the argument shall be that imposing American sensibilities on Afghanistan is not worth the blood of one more American soldier.

In the end a Democrat congress and President may well decree our efforts are in vain, will cut off funding, and leave the Afghans to their own devices. Worse, they may do this after several more years of futile stalemate in an effort to neither lose nor win. The subsequent bloodshed, the re-creation of a safe haven for Islamofascism, the fate of the women and children will be collateral damage that won’t be spoken of. And someone will propose a marble tombstone for vain deaths that the Left will use to preen its moral superiority as it seeks another Viet Nam.