Leadership Gone Wild?

Our Belligerent Presidential Candidates

“He who wishes to fight must first count the cost…

When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming…

men’s weapons will grow dull and their ardor will be dampened.” Sun Tzu

Something keeps nagging at me about our “leaders.” And when I hear  candidates,  particularly GOP, talk tough-fluff, their prattle goes right to my gut. Some talk of carpet bombing which is illegal; and apparently they don’t know that; or perhaps they don’t care. Others talk about “bombing them until the sand glows and taking their oil.”  Really?  And what will the countries be doing while being bombed, oil being confiscated, smiling?

I often think of what I saw in Viet Nam, and how I saw us. We were Americans: tall, many of us more than 6 feet, well fed, bodacious, audacious, heavily equipped, dressed in jungle boots, fatigues, state-of-the-art stuff: F4 fighter jets, A6 Intruders, B52s bombers, Huey Cobra attack helicopters, personnel carriers, tanks, battle ships. I was lucky enough to watch the USS New Jersey firing off the coast of Da Nang; and when it fired, seemingly the entire globe shook—an awesome machine, etc., etc. We were bad asses; so we thought. I often heard, “We’re going to kick some VC ass, Whoaa!”

Well, the Viet Cong didn’t have such modern weaponry, equipment; they weren’t six feet, grain-fed. Many range from 4 feet to perhaps 5 feet plus, dressed in black cotton pants and shirts, resembling pajamas, and often without combat boots or jungle boots, but rather tongs or what we consider sandals,  and in some cases, no shoes, a backpack, and either an AK 47 or a “Chicom” machine gun (Chinese Communist).

Here’s the zinger! We, during the more than 10 years fighting, dropped, some eight (8) Billion Ton of Bombs, more than in World War II (Europe and Asia). For 10 years, night and day, we dropped 8 billion tons of bombs covering an area only about the size of California or Japan. Imagine sitting in San Francisco or Sacramento and having to escape incoming by scurrying to the bunkers often several times during the night.  We lost! They defeated us. Recall, we hurried to rooftop of the US Embassy to catch the last helicopter out of country. It was a war where the giant superpower was unable to defeat a small, developing, tenacious country. And yes, we lost some 58,000 service members; a terrible loss of life that rippled into so many families and communities back home. We also ended the lives of some 3, 000,000 (that’s million) Vietnamese; of those killed, 80% were civilians, probably planning for fall harvest, gathering at the water point each day, who had nothing to do with why the war was happening all around them.  And we did not, as Sun Tzu said, “count the cost.”

I likened it to the little mosquito keeping the giant awake at night. And the giant just can’t get his hands on that mosquito. Mosquito or not, we were defeated! And we don’t seem to have the courage to discuss it, or analyze it, and learn from it.  And I also believe we are at the precipice of war again, with a mindset of belligerence and dominance. Again, the awakening giant trying to swat a swarm of mosquitos: tenacious, brazen, and deadly. And if those wanting war were to win, we will repeat the same again: losing thousands of lives on both sides or on all sides. I believe we are very slow learners; we fear new knowledge.

I fear most of our candidates and many of our country leaders do not have the heart and knowledge to shrink their ego, access their wisdom, and lead; they are not equipped to command this nation in a radically and rapidly changing world.

What say you?