GOP Rep. Claims U.S. ‘Won’ Vietnam War, Calls for Boots On the Ground in Iran

Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA) claimed on Tuesday that the United States “won” the Vietnam War while arguing that putting boots on the Iran would bring the conflict to a swift end.

McCormick joined Newsmax host Todd Starnes on Tuesday to discuss, among other topics, the ongoing military operation in Iran and the controversial option of putting U.S. troops on the ground to end the month-long conflict.

Starnes questioned the congressman over whether he was concerned about the possibility, an opinion many within his party have voiced in recent days. McCormick claimed that while he would prefer to avoid sending troops into harm’s way, previous U.S. military victories were consistently achieved only when large-scale operations were launched.

McCormick included the Vietnam War in this list of victories, a conflict that killed over fifty thousand U.S. troops and resulted in the communist takeover of South Vietnam.

“Yeah, I don’t want to have boots on the ground, but also I want to have all options on the table,” said McCormick, who added:

One of the things we’ve done poorly in the past is we do this thing called limited warfare. It’s never worked for us. When we go to war college, or command and staff college, we always learned that the worst kind of way to fight any war is to do it half-assed. We were horrible in Afghanistan and Iraq until we did surge ops, and then we won. We were horrible in Vietnam until we did Thunder One– Rolling Thunder One and Rolling Thunder Two, and then we won.

As soon as we go half measures, we lose. We lose popular support. The faster we get this over, the better. We seize Kharg Island, that is technically boots on the ground. It can be done almost flawlessly. We have enough firepower. That would be very easy to defend. I know nobody wants to see that, but at the same time, we can choke them off, end this war, and get back to business so everybody’s gas prices come back down, and so they’re not funding Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis. The people will be happy. But the longer we drag on, the more frustrated the people will get and the less support we will have.

President Donald Trump has deployed thousands of troops to the Middle East since the conflict began, including 2,000 troops from the 82nd Airborne and 3,500 sailors and Marines. The president claimed on Tuesday that the U.S. would be leaving Iran “very soon,” as gas prices continue to skyrocket.

Watch above via NewsMax.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!