"What in God's name is he talking about?"

He means, "Ho Chi Minh succeeded because he didn't quit."

Here's a lesson we learned about Vietnam - George W. Bush is too stupid to figure out what happened. If he wasn't he would never be taking Henry the K's advice on Iraq. Kissinger is determined to prove he was a genius during Vietnam, but the American public wouldn't listen. George is so dumb he thinks one last push is going to fix Iraq. These two are going to get a lot of people killed unless the American people stop them.

PS I believe many more than one million Vietnamese died during the war. I believe it was closer to two to three million.

Tom

If you stay then you haven't lost. And if you haven't lost, well, then, you're winning

How sad. Such a simplistic concept. And yet I believe it is an accurate description of how the Administration looks at the bottom line.

Perhaps this explains why the old flag of South Vietnam was on the White House web site promoting the trip. Kissinger must have convinced Bush that if we fly the old flag, we really haven't lost. So maybe the answer in Iraq is to put up the British flag and pretend it's still a British colony and we're just helping them stablilize the country they invented.

Thanks for the clue. I was wandering around my office lost in a fog. You've shown me the light.
(:o})

I've lived in Vietnam & the Vietnamese are very polite, but such dumbassery must try even their patience. Well, I'm sure W's advance people told the Vietnamese, "Uh, look, he's dumb as a post & is almost certainly going to say something stupid." So at least they'd be prepared.

Statistics: About a million military & paramilitary (Viet Cong) deaths in the VN war; as high as five million total, including civilians. There's no way to get a very accurate count. And Vietnamese civilians are still dying & being maimed by unexploded American ordnance & by dioxin from Agent Orange.

There are indeed many lessons to be learned from the Vietnam War; unfortunately, we haven't learned them.

See Valdron's excellent post on this subject on another thread: here

There seem to be two competing answers to the question "What lesson should we have learned from Vietnam?" W's answer seems to be that we should have stayed until we won, so we should leave the troops in Iraq until they finish the job. The other conventional answer is that by staying, we sank deeper into quagmire, so we should bring the troops home now.

Although there is a point of view that there may be a strategy of disengagement in Iraq that would result, in the long run, on lower loss of life and a better likelihood of long-term stability than either staying till the bitter end or withdrawing precipitously, I view this strategy as substantively the same as "stay until we finish" and its underpinnings are very suspect.

But the problem I have with this debate over "the lessons learned" is this: there were millions of us in the streets prior to the invasion saying "DON'T GO IN THE FIRST PLACE!"

OK, we are there, reality must be accepted. But as far as lessons that need to be learned, this one still hasn't been.

The irony of the return to the trope that Vietnam was lost by lack of will is that it was refuted by Eliot Cohen in "Supreme Command" and by Max Boot in "The Savage Wars of Peace." These two books were strongly advocated for Bush because they urged the view that Vietnam was lost becasue the strategy and the tactics employed were mistaken and only the President could insist on the right answers and establish the correct policy for the nation.

What is so striking about most of the debate over Iraq is how much it misses the point. I recommend "Cobra II" to every American. It helps move the debate beyond most of the sterile back and forth. One thing that is so striking about the Book is how little Bush figures in it. Rumsfeld and Franks are the key actors of the war. The real crime of American policy is that it could never have carried out any of the policy goals of the Bush Administration and when military officers within weeks of the wars start told them that their advice was ignored in favor of Franks thinking that he was refighting the Gulf War and Rumsfeld's distain for nationbuilding and his desire to recreate the military into a 21th Century fighting force.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Bush is completely clueless.  First as many others have noted the message of Vietnam is lost on him.  They only way we would have "won" was to literally kill every single person...we never had a chance to win.  The French knew it and got out of there by roughly 1960.

But for Bush then to insult the Vietnamese is beyond comprehension.  Vietnam is an emerging economic force in SE Asia and El Presidente goes there makes a fool of himself and our country trying to make a point about Iraq?  He is a complete and total dumbass.  I have read his IQ is around 90...I am starting to believe that number is probably is much higher than the real score.  I bet even if he was given all the answers he still couldn't break 90.  How can one man be so stupid over and over and over again?  Our idiot savant president...

Here's a process that has gone unremarked--the more soldiers die, the harder it is to quit the battle. Easier for the soldiers, of course (called retreat or regrouping), but harder for leaders. The higher the death toll the worse the leader will look if he throws in the towel.

This process did become conscious during Vietnam, adding to the "credibility" arguments. In other words, the longer we were there and the more dead, the worse a hit our credibility would take.

Eventually the leader faces the choice of absolutely certain humiliation or prosecution. At this point he is absolutely trapped.

We are now well past equaling the number of dead on 9/11. Expect a final total of around 4,000 for Iraq alone.

Man, if I were the Vietnamese government, I'd have told the pilot of Airforce One to turn that bird around--unless he could find the a country called the Republic of Vietnam to land it in.

Imagine how we in the US would feel had Britain intervened in the American Civil War on the side of the Confederacy, as the Confederate states were lobbying very hard for them to do; prolonged the war another 8 years only to pull out and leave the the Federal government victorious, but with the nation completely wrecked; worked diligently even after leaving to try to cut the US off economically from the rest of the world; and then 30 years later, as we're finally managing to get back on our feet despite British efforts to squash us, the British Prime Minister pays an official visit sporting the Confederate flag, making statements of regret that they didn't stay to "finish the job" (meaning finish the United States completely off), and reminiscing about a prominent British officer-turned-politician who had spent harrowing time as a POW in the Union's Camp Douglas.

I don't think it would leave Americans or their government inclined to feel kindly disposed toward Great Britain, to say the very least.

The other lesson Bush sometimes claims to have learned is that politicians shouldn't interfere with the generals' plans. However, this rule apparently only extends to Bush and not to interference from Cheney or Rumsfeld.

A good lesson is don't throw away more lives of American soldiers trying to redeem the lives already lost.

Many months ago I wondered in another LJ post if we would be "treated" to the same lasting shame as in Vietnam, namely having to watch our troops shooting their way out from the roof of the embassy.

I'm more convinced than ever that Kissinger has been whispering under Bush's bed at night, or worse, that the Chump-in-Chief was electively listening to the bullsh*t brainwash.

The arrogance of this foolish war of choice was in not heeding Colin Powell's "overwhelming force" doctrine, born of the travesty of the Vietnam experience. To imagine that the Iraqis would roll over to our clarion call of "freedom and democracy" and not seek to exploit our stupidity and lack of force to do the laundry- namely the "blood washes honor", ranks right up there with the conventional wisdom of the Vietnam era.

I give it six months before we see our soldiers fighting their way out over the borders into Kuwait and Jordan.

Alphonse ( Al ) Kada

No.. they will not accept the loss. I too was flabbergasted this AM when I heard President Bush saying that we should have "stayed the course" in that war with Vietnam and won... to spread democracy in the communist country he is speaking in! That was as rich as his calling the war on terror a CRUSADE.

Maybe if the President would have got off his ass and gone to 'Nam instead of playing political flunky in Alabama he might have won the war all by himself.

He reminds me of the Repub. candidate on The Colbert Report who was a young guy and all for the war in Iraq... Colbert asked why he wasn't in the military serving? Hehehehehe... the guy said that he was doing his part by running for Congress. They should show that one more... Like Rep. Westmorland trying to name the 10 Commandments.

The Repub. powers went out and got the stupidest person they could to make President... and he sure isn't letting them down. The only problem is... he didn't know he was a puppet and he is running the White House like he thinks he is the President.

What's more extraordinary?

How little Dubya understands about the Vietnam war, or the fact he had no problem telling the Vietnamese things would have been better off if we hadn't have left their country when we did?

Either way, the sonofabitch has never paid a visit to a certain black marble monument just down the road from his official residence.

... or more if somebody doesn't rein this madman in before January 2009.

Tom

Au contraire, the millions who marched on 2/15/2003 to prevent this war learned the lessons. Moronic Bush will never learn anything from Vietnam because he's too dumb. He thinks a final military push will give us "victory" whatever in the hell that means.

Tom

When I heard this on NPR, half asleep this morning, I doubted my ears.  Then I heard it on the replay and I thought exactly the same thing as Devon says.  This President has all the tact and finesse of--of--I can't come up with a simile appropriate, any suggestions?

Thinking further, and hearing the bands playing and the red carpet described, I came to think a little more about the whole question of winning and losing.  Did we "lose" this war in a cultural sense?  I have two fine young Vietnamese men taking their first class in English at my university.  What is the course?  History of Democracy.  What is their proposed course of study?  International Business.  How would our world be different if we "won"?  Thirty years and Viet Nam is in a process of cultural transformation far greater than ours, I think.

The lesson I take from the Viet Nam experience is diametrically opposed to that of GWB.  Our prosecution of that war retarded the modernization of that country.  I'm not quite ready to argue history is a matter of "inevitable forces," but had we the faith in our economic and social institutions, our inventiveness and our salesmanship, and our ability to seize the day--all of which we claim to have--we'd exercise the patience GWB cautions we need to a far different set of ends:  we'd do the stuff we're good at, like make stuff, sell stuff, and treat each other moderately well, shun the stuff we're demonstrably bad at, like colonialism, neo-colonialism, or neo-neo-colonialism, and develop the patience to let history show that it indeed is on our side. 

Small men, seeking roles in the Great Men Theory of History which they don't begin to understand, court disaster for themselves by thinking they're cutting swathes while they're only digging ditches.

aMike

 That is an excellent analysis of the two wars.  In both cases our government and a large block of our people saw what they wanted to see, and made their decisions based on their self-delusion.  Even now, even in this website, there are many people who have shaped the world according to their self delusions and, based on that, they are determined to battle Islamofascists "over there and not over here".

Hoppy in Sacramento

We need to stay the course in Iraq at least until the leadership of the secular Sunni community are all either killed by US funded Shi-ite militias or they leave for Jordan or Syria.

Iran is counting on it. The Iranian mullahs have said they want the US to stay until Maliki and his Iranian backed followers can secure Total Victory for Iran and the new Islamic Republic of Iraq! link

...In fact, members of the Iranian political establishment like Pirouz Mojtahedzadeh are now openly calling “for the US to REMAIN in Iraq until it has established a strong, stable central government capable of providing adequate security.” (Kim Murphy LA Times) Of course, Iranians have to be discreet in their support for the ongoing occupation, but the truth is obvious; Bush is laying the groundwork for a fundamentalist regime in Baghdad by quashing the secular, Ba’athist-backed resistance....

Anyway, so what, the lessons of Vietnam  are clear, kill a few million folks, give it 30 years, and bingo, things can change for the better:

"people can reconcile and move beyond past difficulties.” (Bush visit link)

Excepting of course for the war's dead, wounded, orphaned....

He didn't quit. "Bac Ho" died in September of 1969.

Of course, many of the same people, such as John Kerry, who argued in the 1970's: "Who gives a rat's ass about what happens to the gooks in Vietnam?" still argue "Who the hell cares what happens to the ragheads in Iraq?"

When the cost to demonstrate that we care is hundreds and thousands of American lives I strongly agree with Kerry and these sentiments. I believe it is wrong for American citizens to die for another country to achieve democracy.  No one but Americans fought our Revolutionary War. As it should be for all other countries fighting for their own democracy.  I do not want my son or daughter dying in the mudswamps of Vietnam or the desert sands of the ME to insure THEIR democracy.Piss on that!!

If that means we are leaving with 'our tail between our legs' So be it!!

At least our tail and legs are intact and not left in their mudswamp or desert. 

One of the many ironies of the U.S./Vietnam relationship is that Ho Chi Minh started life with a profound admiration and respect for America and American democracy. While living in Paris in 1919 he even attempted to gain an interview with Woodrow Wilson, in town for the Paris Peace Conference, to propose a U.S.-Vietnam alliance and U.S. assistance in creating a Vietnamese democracy. Wilson refused to see him. Over the years, Ho made repeated overtures to U.S. presidents with identical results.

Somehow, if he were still alive, I think he might have passed on G.W.

Important to note that John Kerry never made a racist remark such as the one in the box above. No one I know who wants to exit the Iraq fiasco, which our military presence is making worse, has made racist remarks about Iraqis either.

Tom

Produce that "quote", cite the reference, or withdraw it.

Alphonse ( Al ) Kada

Important to note that John Kerry never made a racist remark such as the one in the box above.

OOps...thanks Tom...I would edit the box, to delete his name but as you know...once a comment is replied to it is etched in stone.

Produce that "quote", cite the reference, or withdraw it.

This reply should be to the original poster, Dan Tanna. Not me. I was responding to the comment. I apologize for the inference that Kerry made the quote. I had no intent to slur his character. unfortunately, because the comment was replied to I cannot edit it.

Wait...I know...I will delete it and repost it !

Update...weelll..I did repost it...but I guess you can't delete either once a comment is replied to ...sorry.

Here is what you are overlooking. In Viet Nam there was no "Victory" for us to win. The real lesson for us to have learned from Viet Nam was that a western army cannot conquer an Asian nation without totally destroying it, and there was no possible "Victory" there short of scortched earth conquest.

Even if there was something there that was worth winning a scortched earth conquest, American isn't willing to do that. The cost on both sides is too high.

The same calculus applies in Iraq. We really have two choices in Iraq. We can go for a scortched earth conquest as victory, then turn around and release Iraq to its own control, or we can get out and let them gain control of their nation on their own in their own way. There is no other option for us in the long run. I look at it as spending a horrible amount of lives and treasure to catch Iraq and then release it, or just quit paying the cost and release it now.

The cost is going to be very high either way. The best we can do is look for the low-cost option of getting out, and call that "Victory." There is no other option on the table.

This is what Colin Powell meant when he said "Pottery Barn rules. You break it, you bought it." It's what I meant when I said that Bush was grabbing the Tar Baby.

By staying in Iraq there is no "Victory" to be won. There wasn't when we invaded. The "catch" part of "Catch and release" is a lot more expensive than just to quit fishing in that pond. Neither choice leads to an American victory of any kind, but those are the only options.

All Bush can do is spew talking points he's heard in the wingnut circles.

If you ever wondered what the difference was between a person whose total eduction is from what he has heard from those around him, and one who also reads and learns from what he read and compares it to what he has heard, Bush is the prime example.

He receives more emotion than fact, and seems quite unable to apply significant logic to either.

Oh, by the way, studies suggest that the American population is becoming less literate and more like Bush. They can't get ideas from their reading.

Scared yet?

George W reacts very accurately to what those right around him want to hear. You can tell who surrounds him by what he says.

Since he gets no education from reading, he knows nothing about those who are not immediately speaking to him (and he restricts those to who he agrees with) and nothing about people who do not speak in English. Clearly he cannot imagine that the Vietnamese people might react differently to what he says than the Conservatives in his immediate cortege have to say.

Perhaps I can point out that many of the Iraqis see fighting us as fighting colonial occupation? While many Americans see our fight there as a fight against what they call "Islamofascism."

I see that as exactly the same basis for the two wars.

Whiterosebuddy, you write that "no one but Americans fought our Revolutionary War."

Maybe you want to check your old high-school history text. Lafayette, you may find there, was not even the only "foreigner" to come to our aid. In fact, it can be argued that we won because of the assistance of the French.

Great post...aMike.

We fought a war in Vietnam to stop the spread of communism.  We didn't win the "war" but even so communism didn't spread.  But ultimately our ideals won what all our bullets, bombs and killing couldn't win...

That is the lesson for Iraq Georgie should take from our Vietnam experience...

The man is amazing.  I get the impression that not one thing he has done since he was first elected was based on any rational thought on his part.  He is told what to do and say by the people who surround him and he does and says it well.  I guess from his POV independent thought is too taxing.  I am convinced that the only thing he gives serious consideration to is brush clearing in Crawford...

What will we do with the Iraqis who allied themselves with the United States. We left the Montanyards and other allies out to dry and they suffered greatly. The United States has a long history, going back to the Barbary Pirate Wars , of allying with locals and then losing interest and leaving our allies to fend for themselves.

Vietnam shares some similarities to Iraq, a secretary defense and an administration who had many theories on how the military should be constituted and a General who was fighting the wrong war.

However, Vietnam was fought to show the Russians that we would fight. It was one more battle in the Cold War The military outcome was never all that crucial. Cheney seems to have seen Iraq in the same mold but the Middle East, home to the globes oil, is not Southeast Asia.

Look at the lack of real consquence by the 1975 withdrawal. The Vietnamese invaded Cambodia and started a border war with China. Now the Vietnamese are joining the global economy and soon will be denounced by the anti-global left as taking jobs from Americans when they will be taking jobs from Chinese, Malaysians and Mexicans.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Maybe you want to check your old high-school history text. Lafayette, you may find there, was not even the only "foreigner" to come to our aid. In fact, it can be argued that we won because of the assistance of the French.

 Relative to the number of troops that Americans have in Iraq and our 'pre-emptive strike' those foreigners would be insignificant in terms of their committment vs. Americans. Let's not forget that we are killing Iraqi civilians not even  elisted in Iraqi.  We did not topple Saddam because the Iraqi's were fighting for their own democracy.

Daniel,

I believe I'm correct in saying that there were American military and intelligence people in Vietnam under Truman. I remember the PBS Vietnam series showing an American killed there in the late 1940's. Certainly we were giving the French money before Ike came in. Truman made the fateful decision to have the USA oppose Ho after he had been FDR's wartime ally in fighting the Japanese in Vietnam.

Tom

J. McCutchen

Pathetic isn't it? My first reaction as well was "Pollyanna wanna a cracker"

But revealingly I suppose, I neglected in my initial revulsion the really sad aspect. Juan Cole who is more sensitive to how others see America than I, pointed out that Bush insulted not just our intelligence but more importantly insulted his hosts. Cole also reports that he similarly insulted the Phillipines.

Imagine if the New York Times had disclosed that the Spaniards had nothing to do with the Maine!

The opposition forces the United States faces in Iraq are not regular army but they not unorganized. The first American Marines to die in Iraq were shot by guys in a pick-up truck in black "pajamas" using an AK-47. The Fedayeen and foreign fighters, with Syrian, Jordanian and other national passports, were a feature of the this war right from the begining.

The U.S. Military expected to confront the Republican Guard using both WMDs and tanks. Neither really materialized. Instead there were unarmed men using trucks to get around Iraq where there were numerous weapons caches, especially RPGs. The Fedayeen could pick up weapons stashed in schools, mosques or hospitals and then ditch them and blend into the Iraqi population. It was on reason so many civilians were killed relative to American soldiers that and the shortage of American troops in the first place.

The failure to adapt to this type of warfare and to use the Iraqi Army and policy after Baghad fell is one reason why we are in the fix we are now. It should be remembered that Lincoln wanted a general who would ignore Richmond, the Confederate capital, and would crush the Confederate Army. It was only with Grant and Sherman that Lincoln found such generals. Franks was fixated on Baghdand as Iraq's center of gravity.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

If this article is any indication, it sounds like GW didn't do much after the speech to improve things.

I don't think that his problem is just that rational thought is impossible. I'd guess that the truth is that rational thought is impossible to someone who is not strongly literate.

Rational thought seems to be an outgrowth of literacy. It comes from people who write, and who read for pleasure. Neither applies to George W.

On the opposite side, those of us who do read for pleasure and write (sort of describes the blogging class in a nutshell, doesn't it?) quickly spot the absence of the form of rationality we expect.

I suspect that much of humanity operates at the level of instinct, intuition, and verbal suggestion from others that we are seeing in George W. We just don't normally see such people because they (a.) do not communicate effectively to larger groups and (b.) reject as failed persons when they try because they do not operate at the level of rationality that we expect and demand.

That's just a speculation, though.

I was in Saigon for most of 8 years from 1963 till I left from the top of the Embassy at midnight on the last day in 1975. We lost. It is a neo-con myth that by changing from Gen. Westmoreland to Abrams and the strategy to true counterinsurgency, we were winning and just gave up.

It is another myth that Vietnam is worse off than it was in my time there. I have been back to teach college professors market economics and see the differences. People are not hungry and there is much activity in the South--I have not been in the North, but could not compare as I wasn't there before the war. If you do not believe this, go see for yourself.

We are likewise losing in Iraq. Read the writing of people who have been there and speak Arabic and move outside the Green Zone and have an overall view--not the officials who tout the official line. Try Nir Rosen at http://www.bostonreview.net/BR31.6/rosen.html or Tom Ricks' Fiasco. It isn't that we are losing so much as that we have become irrelevant. Whether we have enough military or not, we can't speak or listen to Arabs and our strategy and tactics change with the wind--and with the changes in the military units as they are rotated home after a year. The Iraqis will determine how this plays out. It won't be for the good and the results will not come soon and the neighbors are going to get involved, probably not for the better.

Look, we don't even have a side to root for in this war. Insurgents vs. Iranian supported militias? Which side do you want American kids to die for?

To fully comprehend this insanity, especially now that we know that Kissinger's advice has been sought by Mr. Bush, one needs to understand just what the good Dr. K. said to Chinese Prime Minister Zhou en Lai in a secret meeting that occurred June 20, 1972 in Beijing at the Great Hall of The People.

The NSA Archives recently released the full conversation: "Memorandum of Conversation with Zhou Enlai, 20 June 1972". (3.13 MB PDF File), or just the portion germane to Vietnam, pp 27-37, can be viewed as an html file here. Whichever your choice, be sure to notice who the NSA rep was in attendance that day, one John Negroponte.

What strikes me is the emptiness of Kissinger's words. He says bluntly that he is not interested in the details, only the big things. But those are the easy things since the pesky details are set aside. (He expects diplomats to deal with that.)

He will have nothing useful to offer Bush. 

You defy one of the conventional wisdoms of the Left, namely that the WMDs were a fairytale made up by the Bush administration to invade Iraq.

Moving beyond that obvious fallacy, you're right, we were prepared for a threat that never materialized. You can see this in the Iraq Options Paper and the newly released documents at the National Security Archive. The Pentagon had a plan under the Clinton administration to invade Iraq, called Desert Crossing.

There's no question that we stand before a great challenge in Iraq, but unlike the challenge in Vietnam, this one is feasible to defeat. There are not millions of Iraqi insurgents standing in our way, there are under 100,000. Perhaps we should increase our troop strength and try to eliminate them, I don't know. I'm not a military general, and I have not been in Iraq.

I have heard that Russ Feingold has been in Iraq, and therefore, he is a military expert. Or something.

Has Larry Johnson been in Iraq??? Doubt it.

Whatever the lesson from Vietnam, it is not what Larry Johnson claims it is since he ignores most of the differences between the war there and in Iraq.

We have accomplished far more in Iraq than we did in Vietnam, mostly because of the efficiency of our military, the terrain, and the complete incompetence of Saddam Hussein as a military leader.

Now we need to win the peace. Larry Johnson posted some good ideas on winning the peace at his blog a while ago, but I feel that he is not committed to them. The Democrats are obsessed with Vietnam and losing the war for us once again. In Vietnam, there was no way to win. In Iraq, there is. It is an entirely different ball game, and Democrats need to wake up and realize that.

This is not Vietnam - it is Iraq.

Communism won over us in Vietnam, but we cannot afford to let Islamic terrorism defeat us in Iraq. We cannot let Iraq become the new al-Qaida camp of Afghanistan. If we do, it will set us back years and years.

The entire idea with Iraq was to usher in democracy in the region. This may have been optimistic at best, but should we really give up on the idea because of some sort of racist ideal that Muslims/Arabs cannot establish democracy??

I feel that the Left is simply telling us that the radical Muslims don't want democracy, therefore we should be isolationist and wait for them to attack us once again for not being in line with their philosophy.

I dream of Osama bin Laden actually being a promoter of change in the Middle East, but I think it is all too clear that he wants Islam to dominate the entire world with a nuclear Muslim caliphate at the helm.

I wish bin Laden was fighting for the plight of the Muslim people, but his actions prove that he is not. He would kill thousands of Muslims in the name of the Muslim caliphate that was to dominate the entire world.

As Elton John said recently, religion should be eradicated and we should get back to reality - every last one of us.

This is about the survival of the human race, and all this stupid fighting about religion, which is actually a fight about dominance between the races, is what will do us all under.

I say this while I am slightly drunk, but that means I am speaking the absolute truth as I see it.

I'm sure Larry Johnson would appreciate that, since he and his VIPS group are engaged in the most vicious of propaganda to make the US look bad.

Why is it that Seixon's posts seem so much like Bush stay the course speeches, or Rush Limbaugh's twisted BS? It taxes the eyes and mind to even read this tripe after four+ years of hearing it.

This war was lost before the first bomb fell because the strategic objective of invading and creating a democratic pro-US democracy in Iraq was not possible.

=== I believe I'm correct in saying that there were American military and intelligence people in Vietnam under Truman. ===

Do you mean after the surrender of Japan? Because before that there were plenty of OSS advisors providing American arms and assistance to Ho.

sPh

I agree with you that Vietnam and Iraq are so different that there are no lessons that transfer. But for the opposite reasons. In Vietnam the US had the support of a significant minority, but the opposition was very well organized and proved impossible to beat without annihilation. The opposition was focussed on beating the US militarily.

In Iraq we have the support of very few (the Kurds are a different story). They are focussed on each other. Both the Sunnis and the Shiites believe it is their land. The US occupation is just a footnote for them.

While your comment is true and can be verified factually, you forgot one critically important fourth point:

4. Vietnam, exactly like Iraq, is completely a no win situation for the United States. Unlike conventional wars such as the two World Wars earlier in the 20th Century, both Vietnam and Iraq were/are guerrilla wars. A guerrilla war defies logic and convention in that there is no ultimate strategic military headquarters or national Capitol/Executive/Parlimentary buildings to capture and force the government into surrender.

In a guerrilla war, the enemy does not distinguish itself by wearing unique uniforms. Instead they blend into the general population so not only can they remain undetected, but the general population casualty rate skyrockets, undermining U.S. soldier morale and drawing increasing international criticism for high civilian death rates.

One of the best recent examples of effective guerrilla tactics using civilians was seen in Lebanon last summer--Hezbollah fired Katusha rockets at northern Israel from launchers positioned in schools, old folk's homes, and apartment complexes deep within Lebanon. When Israeli fighter jet's radar targeting systems locked in on the rocket launchers and dropped automatically guided bombs on them, hundreds of civilians were killed because of where the launchers had been carefully placed. Hezbullah scored huge propagana points in the international media, making the IDF look like barbarians for killing Lebanese schoolchildren, elderly and civilians in their homes! Guerrilla war is NEVER played on an even playing field. It is almost impossible to win against guerrillas in a long term war.

And finally, in both the Vietnam and Iraq wars, the people that the U.S. are fighting are desperately defending their own native soil against a super-power nation of invaders! No matter how much firepower we have and are willing to throw at these people, they are defending their homes and have nothing to lose, while our soldiers are half-way around the world wishing they were anywhere but there! Those two very different levels of motivation make a big difference.

Given these points that you convienetly left out, there is NO reason we should be in Iraq and no way we can possible win. Obviouslly, it would be crazy to pull out immediatly; as your post pointed out quit well, doing so would surely lead to a holocaust similar to the one we caused by pulling out of Vietnam without arranging for some kind of U.N. peacekeepers or verifiable check on the Marxist tyrants there. But nonetheless, we must arrange for a strategy to pull out and start immediate negotiations with the U.N. and international community to send troops to insure that the radical muslim population does not assume power and annihalate millions in the name of Allah the Merciful!

I mean post WWII.

Tom

Aaron says: "In fact, it can be argued that we won because of the assistance of the French."

Do you think history will argue that the Boston Tea Party as a defining event in americans fight for democracy to be historically comparable with the USA pre-emptive strike for WMD which then morphed into Americans and their allies(foreigners) fighting for Iraqi democracy?

Outrage I understand, but even that's getting old. What did you expect of Bush? That he would change his spots and suddenly wake up because of the election results? That is the way the Democrats and Liberals and the Lefties and the Bleeding Hearts often reacted, and that is playing the victim. And, when you play the victim, you get hit and hit hard and rendered ineffective, just another complainer in a big field of bad people who can easily hurt you and knock you off balance. I never expected that the Swift Boat Fighters would be so vicious; I never expected that Tom DeLay or Rove could be such an sob; I never thought the Republicans would stoop so low as to use robocalls to try to discredit candidates -- all the sign of being a victim. Well, I for one am tired of seeing such a group act as victims. Bush and his ilk only understand power, a figurative swipe on the side of the head with a two by four. That is what this election was about and, if it isn't understood by now, it will never be. My hope is that Pelosi and Reid and, yes, even Murtha, as well as Dean and Kerry, all understand that the only thing in their favor is that they now have the power. If they use it wisely, they'll pre-empt these very vicious and stubborn "head-in-the-sand" Republicans who don't want to believe the results of this election. If they don't, it'll be more of the same. So act up, persuade your new Congress people and Senators to do the right thing, and then let's not have any more of this whining and complaining and playing the victim.

What a clueless collection of credulous lemmings!

Love your alliterations! Kinda remind me of one of my favorite authors: Tom Robbins!

Jan Knaus

OK, OK, so WRB forgot about the French helping us out. What does that have to do with this? Did the French invade us and overthrow the British "for us?"

This whole bullshit about us bringing democracy anywhere is absurd! That is NOT why we invaded, and anyone with 2 brain cells knows it. You cannot create a democracy from the top down, as we have once again proved.

To Seixon and others who say "we" have accomplished so much in Iraq, I wonder what the response would be from the Iraqi on the street (oops! Can't ask them because they can't go OUT on the street anymore because they're risking their lives) -- how about Iraqis who are studying at the University - should be a good sample, because they are the educated ones (oops! Can't ask them, because militias are kidnapping and torturing teachers, administrators, students, etc).

-- Gee, who can we ask about our many successes in Iraq? I guess just the prez and vp, and some anchors on Fox news -- they are the only ones who seem to know about our greatness in the Middle East!

Jan Knaus

This is a very complicated issue. The first thing is to separate nuclear weapons from biological and chemical weapons. The "yellowcake" story was clearly a lie. However as for biological and chemical weapons there is no doubt that U.S. forces thought they were going to confront them. More to the point Iraqi generals thought they had such weapons until Saddem broke the news to them in December 2002.

Saddem was playing a game with the Iranians and the Shiia of Iraq. He wanted them to believe he had WMDs. That was why he was so slow to cooperate with the U.N. inspectors. That and the fact that he did not think a U.S. invasion was his biggest problem.

Bush and his administration were gun-ho to go to war in Iraq by December 2001. They ignored evidence they did not want to hear. They also could have let the inspectors keep working in Iraq until a definitive answer was reached about WMD but in a literal sense they do not seem to have lied about them.

More to the point, if Iraq had WMDs. Rumsfeld did not send a force to Iraq that could have kept them out of the hands of any terrorists who wanted them. Debating if Bush lied, he often did, seems pointless. He did nothing that could have guaranteed any successful outcome for the use of American military in Iraq.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

LJ is definitely a Tom Robbins angel (Fierce Invalids).

Also check out the "Salted Peanuts" memo that Kissinger has given the Bush White House.

According to the commentary (on the same page as the memo),

Kissinger's advice to Bush amounts to an appeal to do nothing differently...

"I don't want to say that George Bush is a lame duck, but this morning, Cheney shot him". Bill Maher

Thanks, I need to remember that the NSA archives are worth visiting at least once a month...

"Why in the world would people who believe in the common good: Health care for all, good education for all, social security, protecting the environment, fairness and respectfulness want our country to fail? If humanity has any enemies it is because of bellicose bloviating bullies like George Bush that push them over the edge."

That's exactly it, my friend. You want the US to retreat from every place in the world, come home, and give Americans healthcare and all this stuff - stuff that very few others in the world have. As the US retracts from the world, as you want them to, China and Russia will be free to stretch their arms, whether that was an intended result or not of your navel-gazing.

What's more important, healthcare for all Americans, or freedom for the impoverished people in the third world? Wait, don't answer that...

"Question: Did North Korea have nukes when
Dubya was appointed President? Did Iran? Do you think labeling them as "Axis of Evil" was helpful? Do you think announcing a "crusade" helped us, or our enemies? Just askin'"

Who appointed Bush as president? The voters of the country? Put down the Fahrenheit 9/11 and join the rest of us folks, please.

Did NK have nukes in 2001? I can't answer that - I don't know. Kim Jong Il does, though. You are here presenting a typical liberal fallacy that our enemies give a damn about what we say about them. Do you think that the Iranian leadership and Kim Jong Il gave a damn when Bush called them an Axis of Evil? Do you think Osama bin Laden gives a damn if Bush calls him evil? Do you? Do you think it alters their behavior in the slightest? Do you also think that Timothy McVeigh cared if people called him evil? Get a clue.

A "crusade" was announced, yes, a "Crusade" was not. Of course, you do the bidding of Osama bin Laden in speaking of it that way, I'm sure he appreciates it, gets those radical Muslims all riled up. You hear what you want to hear, and so do they.

They ignored evidence they did not want to hear. They also could have let the inspectors keep working in Iraq until a definitive answer was reached about WMD but in a literal sense they do not seem to have lied about them.

In a "literal sense" how many good people are dead that would be looking forward to Thanksgiving with their families if not for this ignoring of evidence? If you know you're lying, you're lying. If you have to hide behind a term like -- I'm not LITERTALLY lying -- you are lying. That is what they did. In fact I think it was intentional, and there is evidence for that, but to prove intentionality is beyond the evidence that I have.

If this administration had made an honest effort to get good intelligence on bio-weapons, they would have also known that there was no threat in that sphere. There is evidence that these facts were also suppressed (Iraqi-American family members dispatched to get info from Iraqi scientists -- reports ignored).

Of course the military was prepared for bio-weapons! It was part of the hype! It would have looked a little silly to send them in without gas masks after all the screaming, wouldn't it?

Forgive me, but I am always a little skeptical when someone prefaces a statement to me with words like this:

This is a very complicated issue.

Sounds a little like Rummy when he said that this war is just too "complicated" for people who weren't as brilliant as he is.

Jan Knaus

Almost 3,000 Amercians will not be coming home to share Thanksgiving not because Bush lied but because he failed to ask any of the hard questions about how the war was going to be fought. Rumsfeld knew with the same certainty that you have how the war would go.

Bush and Rumsfeld agree with you. They didn't see Iraq as a complicated issue. The pro and anti sides relly need to be less sure of themsevles and look at the actual facts on the grounds.

Daniel A. GreenbaumB

OK, I'll try to start with your false deductions:

" You want the US to retreat from every place in the world, come home, and give Americans healthcare and all this stuff - stuff that very few others in the world have. "

First of all, I don't think you can find any statement of mine that advocates that the US should retreat from "every place in the world." As to your statement that the "stuff" of healthcare that very few others in the world have...

Every single developed country in the world has universal health care. Yes, it is true that Yemin doesn't. Haiti doesn't. England does. Germany does. Canada does. Australia does. Italy does. Your point would be that we should be more like Yemin? Because it is so EXPENSIVE to take care of our undeserving, lazy citizens?

Oh, and here you really are a genius:
"What's more important, healthcare for all Americans, or freedom for the impoverished people in the third world? Wait, don't answer that..."

According to you (and other neo-cons) we have 2 choices: Healthcare for Americans, or freedom for the impoverished -- ie Iraq?

Wow, what a choice! Now that Dubya has botched Iraq completely we have to give up our own citizen's health in order to back up the fiction that we are bringing "democracy" to the Middle East. Who do you think you are kidding?

"Who appointed Bush as president?"

The Supreme Court

" The voters of the country?"

No, he lost the popular vote, and the elctoral college vote was suppressed by the Supreme Court. He was appointed, not elected. That is a fact.

"Put down the Fahrenheit 9/11 and join the rest of us folks, please."

What? Farenheit 9/11 is a movie. It happens to be a movie that details truth, but movie or no movie it is a fact that the Bush administration has lied over and over again for the benefit of their financial (as opposed to their voting) base. If Farenheit 9/11 documents it, I guess you need to accept feeling really uncomfortable with the truth. Do you have some facts to refute things that in the movie? I thought not.

By the way, you did not even attempt to show what I dared you to do. Can't blame you for that, since you can't do it.

Jan Knaus