Our Maximum Leader blows it big-time on the Vietnam War

[thatcrazycajun]

After, quite literally, years of insisting that, no, gosh-darn-it, Iraq is not either another Vietnam for the U.S. and its troops, Junior Bush is now doing a one-eighty and embracing the comparison, claiming that if we leave now, people will die or be persecuted in Iraq, just as they were in Vietnam. As part of his party's and administration's effort to furiously spin the recent troop surge's stunning lack of success ahead of next month's awaited-with-bated-breath progress report by Gen. David Petraeus, El Presidente made this assertion in a speech to a veteran's group yesterday. He also engaged in a bit of revisionist history, alleging that the regimes with which we were then allied in Vietnam and Cambodia were exemplars of "freedom and democracy." Mistah Preznit, sir, does the name Pol Pot mean anything to you? How about the Hanoi Hilton? Ho Chi Minh? The Khmer Rouge?

Here and around the world, people who were in positions to know back in the day or have studied the conflict intensively since are laughing their heads off at Bush's specious comparison -- or rather, they would be if the results weren't so costly in life, treasure and impact on world peace. Malcolm Fraser, Australia's former Prime Minister during the Vietnam War, who saw firsthand the effect of US policy on his country and the troops it sent to bolster it, has told a Melbourne newspaper that Bush is basically full of it (see story here). In D.C., two Senators—Edward Kennedy, whose brother ordered the first troops to the region, and John Kerry, who was among those troops, both also slapped down Bush's statements.

I guess this is what comes of expecting a man who was a self-confessed C student in college to learn from history.

Comments

[wolfette]

and his suggestion that the US was wrong to pull out of Vietnam is somewhat ... offensive ... from someone who rode out the war as far from action as he could get.

[ladyqkat.livejournal.com]

I have a minor quibble with the statement that JFK ordered the first troops to 'Nam as I recall Ike was the one who ordered us to help bail out the French. I was a Navy Brat in '54 and the fathers of some of my playmates were sent over to a little-known Southeast Aisa country of no consequence called Viet Nam.

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

My apologies, sir. I should have said JFK ordered "some of the first US troops" to Vietnam. I do of course recall that Eisenhower got things started. Incidentally, an op-ed in today's paper here says that Bush and his people should start taking lessons from Ike on strategy and victory.

[ladyqkat.livejournal.com]

Lady not Sir, but apologies accepted. I just get a little rankled when the blame is placed directly on JFK without considering that it was going on before then. And we should really blame the French who expect us to bail them out but won't return the 'favor'.

[wordwitch.livejournal.com]

I tend to listen to Mr. Bush's statement, apply =(-X) to them, and then use that to identify what is really going on.

It's worked astonishingly well.

The Real Lesson from Vietnam

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

There is, however, a significant and worthwhile comparison, which is what the Dem have been talking about.

In 1973, North and South Vietnam signed a cease fire, which looked to bring stability to the region. Nevertheless, we maintained high troop strength to ensure that the truce would hold.

In 1974, the off year election after Watergate and the Nixon resignation, produced a Congress fervently anti-war and eager to close that chapter in our history. Ford sought funding for a phased withdrawal that would have been a gradual pull down, with steps taken to protect tribal peoples (particularly Montenyards and Hmong) that had aided US forces. Congress rejected this approach, ordering immediate withdrawal.

The result was the utter route and abandonment of allied tribes and clans that continues to resonate in US foreign policy. With US forces suddenly withdrawn, and no funding for anything other than evacuation of US troops, the situation dissolved into chaos. Equipment was abandoned and either captured or destroyed. People we had promised to protect and had a duty to protect were abandoned -- many of whom were captured, tortured, and executed. Several years later, entire flotillas of "boat people" made a desperate escape from the retaliations of the Vietcong.

Contrast with the Israeli withdrawal of Lebanon. Israel withdrew from its security zone with a steady pull down (with a final evacuation by night to avoid last minute attacks and photo ops to Hezbulah). More importantly, Israel accepted thousands of Christian Lebanese refugees who would have been executed as "collaborators".

The difference is planning and a willingness to invest money in the exit. As a number of Dems have pointed out, military experts agree that an orderly evacuation of Iraq would take 10-12 months, cost billions, and require some tough decisions on what to do with Iraqi refugees (already a huge problem in Jordan, Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East). Anything less organized becomes a route in which we leave weapons in the hands of our enemies and further destablize the region.

In engineering, the study of failure is often as important as the study of success. We should examine the Vietnam withdrawal very carefully, as well as other major withdrawals, to develop a withdrawal strategy. As many soliders of my acquitance like to say "armchair generals talk tactics, real generals talk logistics." We gotta figure the logistics of an orderly withdrawal, not a sudden evacuation.

rebuttal

[a-phoenix-afire.livejournal.com]

====================================
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20408073/

In a speech before the Veterans of Foreign Wars on Tuesday, Barack Obama did two things he is loathe to do: He echoed remarks by Hillary Rodham Clinton, who addressed the group one day earlier, and he disagreed with his base of liberal, anti-war activists. Both Democratic front-runners still want to end the war, but they both admit now that the "surge" is starting to work to reduce violence in Iraq.

"I don't think there's ever been any doubt about that," Obama told the group to tepid applause.
========================================

First of all the surge is working. The reason that there are greater confontations and more of them is because we are pushing the bad guys out instead of containing them. Furthermore we are remaining in the neighborhoods that are being reclaimed instead of heading back to safe zones at night.

Secondly, Viet Nam. Two democrats led us in. A third one pushed a massive build up with no plan except to look tough on Communism, and therefore no goal for winning. He (Johnson) couldn't even raise enough support to run for reelection because of his inept foreign policy.

Richard Nixon reduced troops and funding for the war by eighty percent, while waging it in a way that won it. Bombing in the north and in the communist strongholds in Cambodia forced the North to sign the Paris peace accords which gave us the right to go back and bomb them into submission again if they attacked the South after our withdrawal. Of course, under cover of prosecuting Nixon's 'treasonous and shameful crimes' the Democratic congress turned a blind eye when the North violated their part of the agreement, and the Democratic congress refused to enforce the Paris peace accords even when Gerald Ford called for them not to abandon our allies in the south.

The extent of the history revision that the liberal press has accomplished is staggering.

BTW, the dynamic duo of Kennedy(let's not sweep Chappaquiddick under the rug anymore) and Kerry(whose medals did he throw over the fence after calling American soldiers war criminals) couldn't convince me it was raining if they stood on my front porch dripping wet. I'd have to step around them and look for myself. They are the president and vice president of the 'hate America first club' and the world will be better off when the one dies of acute alcholism and the other wastes all his current wife's money on another run and then can't find a third rich wife to leach off of.

It isn't the ability to win wars that we lack, only the will. Whining naysayers have been pissing on this effort from its inception in Afghanistan and, so far, they've been wrong at every important turn. Winning a war is neither easy nor quick, and maintaining the ground you have taken (not to mention giving the seed of democracy time to grow into something self-sustaining and vigorous) is a long term commitment. For every simpering news reporter you can quote saying wee are going to lose, I can find a soldier on the ground who says we are successful and winning.

One last thing. We have lost far fewer soldiers than the enemy. I'll leave the research of the actual count as an exercise for the reader. (HINT: You're not going to be able to get those numbers easily from the media outlets because they ONLY WANT YOU TO HEAR ABOUT AMERICAN CASUALTIES!!!)

We are giving Iraq the only chance it has for freedom and therein our first best hope for spreading freedom and peaceful cooperative commercial relationships in the region.

Mr Bush has made mistakes. He's also done a hell of a lot right. To the reader; what have you done for your country lately?

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

My, my, my. I had no idea I had such a vocal conservative and/or Republican in my readership, let alone that you were such. If the "liberal media" (never mind the huge corporations that own most of it, which tend to be anything but liberal - cf. "What Liberal Media?" by Eric Alterman) are so deviously keeping The Real Truth from us, where, pray tell, are YOU getting it? From Rush, Sean, Bill and Ann et al. on talk radio and Faux News?

Harold, you wanna refute this guy, or shall I? You're way better at it and probably will be more polite.

For what it's worth

[a-phoenix-afire.livejournal.com]

Attack the messenger. Twist the message. Imply self-important intellectual or moral superiority. Contribute nothing of substance to the debate. You got this crap down cold.

I did say when I signed into m's friends circle that I felt really alone amongst all the libs and that I would try to behave myself, but I'm a patriot before anything else and found it overwhelmingly difficult to let your post just slide by.

It's your blog, and if I really get offended, or if you tell me that I've seriously offended you, I'll just leave, but attacks of uninformed pusillanimity against any leader of our country, dem/repub -- lib/cons ticks me off.

BTW, we were not allied with Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh, or The Khmer Rouge, nor did we or the South Vietnamese run the Hanoi Hilton.

I do generally find your writing and observations entertaining, well written and amusing (in a good way), or I wouldn't read them. I just get my hackles up when you lambaste people like Gates and Bush (who move the world forward), using boiler plate innuendo and worn-out insinuation, with no real factual discourse about why you think they are putzim.

I much prefer the skewering of sacred cows to be done by those using real examples of their mistakes, and which demonstrate a true understanding of the issues involved, and not just knee-jerk emotional cue phrases to incite the greek chorus offstage.

peace bro'

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

I gotta mow the lawn, so I'll just take a stab at the most glaring bit....

"Whining naysayers have been pissing on this effort from its inception in Afghanistan"

The term "this effort" asserts that the Iraq war is part of the same fight as the Afghanistan war (i.e. retaliation and self-defense against Islamofundamentalist terrorism). Sorry, but that's what your side of the debate is required to prove; you don't get to introduce it as a postulate. (Circular Argument: see Argument, Circular.)

Sneaking in an attempt to postulate what you are required to prove undercuts your credibility as a serious advocate (and, frankly, attempting to do so in so transparent a manner is rather insulting to my intelligence).

[a-phoenix-afire.livejournal.com]

Once again: Attack the messenger. Twist the message. Imply self-important intellectual or moral superiority. Contribute nothing of substance to the debate.

My meaning of "this effort" is: opposing terrorism in a way which removes the threat of its global potency by defeating its fighting forces, and removing its political base -in the long run- through democracy and the befriending of its adherents through trade and commerce. The redefinition of my intent to your mantra-like definition of 'retaliation and self-defense against Islamofundamentalist terrorism' is the transparent and intelligence insulting tactic.

I do assert that it's the same fight, I just reject your definition of what the fight is. Yours is too simplistic and ultimately naive, and it is those things because its not a real world view, but a narrowly drawn debating device.

Now as you can see, I can insult with the best. If you'd like to actually debate facts then please use some. Otherwise, go ahead and take the last word because I didn't insult anyone's intelligence or knowledge or person, and you don't get to critique my debating style when yours is this bad.

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

"Once again: Attack the messenger. Twist the message. Imply self-important intellectual or moral superiority. Contribute nothing of substance to the debate."

Really, placing a descriptive title on your comment was not necessary. I had figured all that out for myself.

"My meaning of "this effort" is...."

While we're on the subject of idiosyncratic definitions, how do you define the words (to pick three at random) "alone", "sex", and "is"?

In any case, the substantive meaning of this definition is simply another attempt to postulate what you are required to prove. That bit of circular logic has already been detected, inspected, and rejected.

"opposing terrorism in a way which removes the threat of its global potency by defeating its fighting forces, and removing its political base -in the long run- through democracy and the befriending of its adherents through trade and commerce"

Befriending the ordinary inhabitants of the Middle East through trade and commerce is promising in the long run, but not as a government initiative. When it comes to the notion of government use of trade and commerce as tools of political and social engineering: been there, done that, 1917-1991, RIP.

Liberal Media? What liberal media?

[a-phoenix-afire.livejournal.com]

You wanted to know why I'd think that the mainstream media is undependable, and where I got my information if not from them. Check this out and let me know what you think. I'd especially like to know how much you'd heard about this before now, and how much you've heard recently on the same stations that carried the Natalee Holloway murder for nearly a year.

This story occurred around the same time that Sean Bell got shot while allegedly trying to run down some NYC PD with his limo. That made national headlines. The story of this couple never made it past the local news.

The Murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom
http://www.volunteertv.com/special

We all know about James Byrd, the ex-con from Texas who crossed the wrong people in a drug deal and got dragged to death in a horrible murder that made national headlines for months. Here's a story that has never seen the light of day and never will...

-Young, black Tennessee couple out on a date gets car-jacked by four white men.

-The couple is kidnapped and brought to the home of one of the car jackers.

-The young man is sodomized, castrated, and then beaten and stabbed to death while his girlfriend watches.

-Over the next few days, the girlfriend is repeatedly raped, has one of her breasts cut off while she is still alive, and has drain cleaner poured down her throat to hide DNA evidence.

-While this is going on, the girlfriend of one of the four kidnappers is in the house but never calls police.

Re: Liberal Media? What liberal media?

[oldfolkieathome.livejournal.com]

Um, am I reading what you posted wrong? I went to the lin to the Christian/Newsom story. The victimes were a young *white* couple and the perps were black men and one's girlfriend is being held and charged as accessory.

Okay, please understand this is not an attempt to start a "flame war" (is that old UUNet term even still in use?) What I'm looking for here is clarification.

Did you intend to imply that if the couple had been black, the story would never have been reported even locally?

From a bystander's viewpoint it looks a bit like an attempt to twist a set of facts to support a preconceived argument. Any reporting of a story (whether first, second, third, or thirtieth-hand) with a key fact so clearly wrong hurts and argument. Any arguement. And it looks quite a lot like what the mainstream press is supposed to have done that's got you steamed in the first place?

If a point is worth making, it's worth checking the veracity of the facts used in making that point, whether by journalists or bloggers.

Re: Liberal Media? What liberal media?

[a-phoenix-afire.livejournal.com]

First let me thank you for actually reading the article. My whole point was that those with such strong faith in the media should verify what they say because they are completely untrustworthy. You have done what I want everybody to do, namely, see for themselves. Again Thank you.

I intentionally exchanged the races of the victims/perpetrators so that anyone going in with a partisan agenda would be rocked back on their heels.

I am perfectly aware that the victims were white and that the scum who did it are black.

My whole point is that if the races had been reversed, we would NEVER stop hearing about it. My citation of the shooting in NY and the dragging incident are part of that point. Both of them were FRONT PAGE NATIONAL NEWS for weeks. The dragging has become part of the historical proof that the white man is evil.

However, when two young, innocent white kids are brutally, savagely, raped, tortured and destroyed like animals, you can't even find reportage in the mainstream media using sophisticated search tools and techniques. That's because THERE IS NONE TO BE FOUND. Since they couldn't paint the victims as drug-users. trouble-makers, or anything but perfect children who were destroyed by dispicable animals through no fault of their own, the MSM has decided, en-masse, to make it go away by ignoring it completely. They can't find any way at all to make the victims into white oppressors, or the black scum that did it, in any way sympathetic, so THEY JUST BURY IT!!!!!


Once again, thank you for taking the time to look it up for yourself. Nobody else did.

If you can find it in your heart, please spread the word about Channon and Christopher to anyone you can, any way that you can. The dirt that did this are still awaiting trial in March 2008, and there needs to be public outcry. The MSM isn't going to let it happen if they can prevent it, but we have the internet now.

Thank you

for what it's worth....

[crowatdusk.livejournal.com]

I came across this article today....far from simplistic. And I won't comment further as I am still digesting all of this and will make no pretenses about my intellectuality.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/08/who_lost_iraq_1.html