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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.
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.
