Here we go again – Part 3
Posted by Big John on April 20, 2011
America started sending special advisors to South Vietnam in 1955. By 1961, there were 1,500 special advisors in the country. By 1963, there were 16,000 special advisors on the ground, and we all know what happened after that ! … Luckily for us Harold Wilson kept us out of that mess.
Now it would seem that David Cameron is determined to drop us in the shit up to our necks, while the US takes a back seat, or at least does until some ‘Gung Ho!’ general kicks Obama up the arse; and guess what ? … those words “special advisors” are being used once again with regards to our war the uprising in Libya.
Now the French and Italians have joined in with their own “advisors”, and we are hearing the words ”mission creep”, a term coined by Washington Post columnist Jim Hoagland after the USA’s messy intervention in Somalia in the early 1990′s.
So what comes next ?… Well the words “regime change” are already much in evidence, so I suppose the next step will include the word “escalation” leading most likely to the word “stalemate”, or even to those immortal words used by George W. Bush when he declared the invasion of Iraq as …
… “Mission accomplished” !
Betty said
Our interference just goes on and on. I think it’s because it’s easier to keep wars going than it is to solve the many problems we have at home.
Gabbygeezer said
Your numbers about involvement in IndoChina probably are correct as far as they go. In 1959 I was a troop information instructor at Fort Sill, OK, in the U.S. A General returning from Laos asked (demanded?) to give the program for a week to our 850 enlisted men. Of course, I agreed! He, before all those witnesses, thanked the several thousand American troops he had commanded in Laos. I have never trusted the word of senior military politicans since that day.
All of us (democracies who are usually allies) ought to agree to a partition of Libya between the usually warring tribes in the east and those in the west. Then we should get the hell out of there.
Ginnie said
Why do we (and I include your side of the ocean) always have to be the ones to “advise”? We sure haven’t done too well with our own country (here I mean US as in USA)
Rummuser said
What is of interest to me Big John, is why the Khalifas of Bahrain are not being “advised” or should I say the opposition there being advised?