| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Bush the War Criminal" |
| Date: |
01 Nov 2006 05:55:56 PM |
| Object: |
Iraq = Vietnam 2.0 |
A truly scary Iraq scenario
Robert Scheer
Wednesday, November 1, 2006
EVERY TIME I hear President Bush railing against those who would "cut and
run" in Iraq instead of pursuing "victory," as he does almost daily, I think
back to similar claims being made for the Vietnam debacle when I reported
from Saigon in the mid-'60s. Back then, the U.S. troop presence was lower
and casualties fewer than now in Iraq, but the carnage, on all sides, would
escalate for the next decade, as we waited miserably for the corner to be
turned.
Then, as now, calls for setting a timetable for an orderly withdrawal were
rejected as emboldening our enemy to attack America. Instead of a dignified
withdrawal, we plunged ever deeper into the quagmire, leaving 58,000 U.S.
troops and 3.4 million Indochinese dead as tribute to our stupidity.
Finally, there was nothing to do but "cut and run" in the most ignominious
fashion. With our U.S. personnel being lifted by helicopter from roofs near
our embassy, it seemed like a low point for U.S. influence, and there were
dire predictions of communism's global dominance -- just as there is today
for the "Islamofascist" bogeyman the president has seized upon.
Those predictions, however, proved dead wrong. Communism did not advance as
a worldwide force after our defeat in Vietnam. On the contrary, a victorious
Communist-run Vietnam soon went to war with the China-backed communists of
Cambodia -- overthrowing Pol Pot's evil Khmer Rouge -- and with ccommunist
China, in a bloody border war.
Today, communist Vietnam is still battling communist China -- but now it is
for shelf space in Wal-Mart and Costco. The United States, meanwhile,
spending itself silly under the haplessly irresponsible President Bush, is
now dependent on China both to carry its debt and contain communist North
Korea's nuclear threat.
So, why accept the president's shrill insistence that a U.S. withdrawal from
Iraq would be a disaster? Surely our departure would compel Iraq's neighbors
in Iran, Syria and Jordan to get serious about quelling the civil war that
they have abetted and which, in the absence of the U.S. occupation, would
threaten to breach Iraq's borders. Why not assume, as it turned out to be
the case with Vietnam, that the Iraqis are best qualified to make their own
history?
The astounding arrogance that underwrites Bush's smug determination to keep
killing and maiming tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of people is no
different than that of Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. Both
knew the war was a failure, but determined to "stay the course" for a decade
out of a misguided belief in protecting an image of American infallibility
that was paired with shameful political motives.
Now, as in Vietnam, our arrogance has created a disaster in Iraq. Our
soldiers continue to kill and die, at enormous cost to the U.S. taxpayers
and in international influence and moral standing, but the cause is already
lost, doomed by the ignorance, lies and bad faith that launched it.
Astonishingly, considering our history and the stakes, our leaders show not
the slightest interest in understanding the fierce nationalism and deep
religious divisions that have marked the Mideast since long before the
United States existed as a nation. Thus, we have repeated the decisive folly
of Vietnam, where our "experts" ignored a thousand-year history of Chinese
occupation in assuming that the fierce nationalist Ho Chi Minh was a puppet
of masters in Red Beijing.
This time, we are led by a false warrior who insists on playing the
simpleton, ignoring his prestigious education at Andover and Yale in favor
of what he presumes are the prejudices of Middle America. Or is this giving
Bush, the son of a president, too much credit? After all, we know from the
various insider memoirs that Bush was unaware that Islam is roughly divided
into two rival sects, Sunni and Shiite, while just last week he bizarrely
announced that our Iraq policy had never been "stay the course" -- as if he
was unaware of the invention of video-recording equipment that had captured
him saying just that countless times.
Whatever you call it, his approach is a sham and a disaster. It is long past
time to let pragmatic realpolitik find a patchwork solution that the region
and Iraqis can accept, peacefully. That is the expected advice from Bush
family consigliere and troubleshooter James Baker and his Iraq Study Group,
which is to report soon after the election. Truly frightening on this Day of
the Dead, though, is that Bush probably won't listen to reason, unless the
voters first soundly repudiate him in next week's election.
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
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| User: "Bush is a traitor" |
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| Title: Re: Iraq = Vietnam 2.0 |
01 Nov 2006 06:20:10 PM |
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In article <45492734$1$12168$88260bb3@free.teranews.com>,
"Bush the War Criminal" <no@none.com> wrote:
EVERY TIME I hear President Bush railing against those who would "cut and
run" in Iraq instead of pursuing "victory," as he does almost daily, I think
back to similar claims being made for the Vietnam debacle when I reported
from Saigon in the mid-'60s.
What would constitute victory anyway? Just as in Viet Nam, we are fighting
an entire nation of people, trying to protect them from themselves.
How does Bush think victory can be achieved? I dare anyone to answer.
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| User: "SHb" |
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| Title: Re: Iraq = Vietnam 2.0 |
02 Nov 2006 06:50:25 PM |
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The Kerry Murtha plan
Insult them and send them packing to Okinawa!
John Kerry, testifying before Congress in 1971:
"They had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from
portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off
limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in
fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned
food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side of South Vietnam."
Kerry also said
"our troops in Iraq were terrorizing women and children in the night."
And lately:
"You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do
your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you
don't, you get stuck in Iraq."
"Bush is a traitor" <bush.traitor@whitehouse.gov> wrote in message
news:bush.traitor-C19E6A.19201001112006@comcast.dca.giganews.com...
In article <45492734$1$12168$88260bb3@free.teranews.com>,
"Bush the War Criminal" <no@none.com> wrote:
EVERY TIME I hear President Bush railing against those who would "cut and
run" in Iraq instead of pursuing "victory," as he does almost daily, I
think
back to similar claims being made for the Vietnam debacle when I reported
from Saigon in the mid-'60s.
What would constitute victory anyway? Just as in Viet Nam, we are fighting
an entire nation of people, trying to protect them from themselves.
How does Bush think victory can be achieved? I dare anyone to answer.
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