Biden/Harris Didn’t Learn Lesson of Vietnam War * WorldNetDaily * by Lt. Col. James Zumwalt

It is interesting that a US administration, led by a president who supposedly has extensive foreign policy experience and a vice president who has virtually none, has chosen to ignore a crucial lesson of American history applicable to Israel’s war in Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was invited to the United States to address Congress. But in doing so, our leaders failed to issue a statement of full support for our ally, failing to understand why, nearly half a century earlier, we lost the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War was a conflict in which we unwittingly helped our enemy snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. It was a mistake that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris repeated during Netanyahu’s visit, helping to undermine an Israeli victory in Gaza.

Years after the Vietnam War, I interviewed General Tran Van Tra, who had commanded the Viet Cong forces during that conflict. He told me how, in January 1968, North Vietnam had orchestrated the Tet Offensive, which involved a coordinated attack on numerous targets throughout South Vietnam, in the hopes of winning a decisive victory to end what had been a bitter battle.

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The offensive lasted nine months, resulting in heavy losses for both American and South Vietnamese forces. However, we failed to understand that this offensive was a major disaster for the North, so much so that its leaders began to doubt their ability to continue the fight.

But Hanoi and Tra were granted a reprieve. They were astonished to hear reports that the Tet Offensive had been a disaster for the United States. These reports strengthened the anti-war movement in the United States and also strengthened the determination of the North Vietnamese leaders to continue the fight. They believed that they could gradually destroy the determination of the United States. Their analysis was quite correct.

Netanyahu has repeatedly made clear that he is determined to continue the war in Gaza until Hamas is destroyed. Ten months into this war, Israel is on the verge of achieving its goal. However, both Biden and Harris have made statements and taken actions that grossly undermine Israel’s ability to pursue this goal by suggesting a lack of U.S. commitment to our ally.

Through its words and actions, the Biden administration has fueled the will of Hamas, which remains undeterred by the high number of Palestinian civilian casualties it has caused by resorting to tactics that allow it to hide within the population.

While the West should be doing everything it can to help Israel, Biden is refusing to deliver 11 combat systems. These include 120mm tank and mortar rounds, medium tactical vehicles, medium air-to-air missiles, F-15 fighter jets, and other war hardware that Israel desperately needs—and this at the very moment that Netanyahu is calling on Congress to “dramatically accelerate” these deliveries. Biden is stupidly ignoring the fact that this only emboldens Israel’s enemies to engage collectively with our ally. Citing British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s similar appeal during World War II to America for weapons more than eight decades ago, Netanyahu told Congress: “Give us the tools and we will finish the job.”

Meanwhile, Harris announced that she would not remain “silent” in the face of Palestinian suffering while refusing to acknowledge the remarkable efforts of the Israel Defense Forces to minimize civilian casualties. This is despite the fact that we now know that many of these Palestinian “civilians” accompanied Hamas terrorists into Israel to participate in their killing spree, bringing back kidnapped Israelis to hold them prisoner in their homes. This is not surprising, as many Palestinians support Hamas in its efforts to eradicate Israel while opposing a two-state solution. Harris later publicly stated that she was open to an arms embargo on Israel.

The Biden/Harris team’s stance has been criticized as “an unconscionable betrayal of our close ally,” adopting “disastrous policies (that) endanger Israel – which is why Israel should do whatever is necessary militarily to protect Israelis even as the Biden-Harris administration shamefully refuses to provide support.”

Ironically, while Hamas believes it can inflict enough casualties on Israel to break its resolve, a recent Israeli study dispels this myth. It notes that the Israeli public has come to accept that the threats its country faces in the Middle East have driven the population to adopt a resilience and a willingness to endure the losses necessary to preserve its national security. Hamas’s October 7, 2023 raid only strengthened this resolve, making it unlikely that Israel will give in first. Hamas, therefore, hopes that Israel’s allies who provide it with support and supplies will be the first to give up their resolve.

Gaza is a war of wills: Hamas’s to destroy Israel, and Israel’s to destroy Hamas before it can do so. The lack of will, as the United States demonstrated in the Vietnam War, which contributed to our eventual defeat, does nothing to help the latter and everything to help the former.

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