Historian Dallek To BHO: Don't Be Another LBJ
Robert Dallek, the great LBJ and JFK biographer,issues a friendly warning to the current President: remember LBJ.
Johnson had absolutely no interest in fighting a war in Vietnam when he came to office in 1963; his wanted to remake America. But he felt constrained by what he believed was his predecessor's commitment. He knew that if he let Vietnam go, the Kennedy crowd (led by RFK) and the Republicans would team up and excoriate him for reneging on JFK's commitment. (Bobby was pro-war until 1967).
LBJ feared that if he ended the war his ability to do anything at home would be compromised.
So he stayed in Vietnam and, when we continued to lose, he escalated. He was knee-deep in the big muddy and felt he had to push on.
In the end, the war destroyed him and his plans for America. Fortunately, he accomplished more in his first three years in office (i.e. voting rights, civil rights, Medicare, immigration reform, consumer protection) than most Presidents do in eight. Nonetheless, Vietnam essentially ended his Presidency in November 1966 when, just two years after his unprecedented landslide, he lost 47 House seats and effective control of Congress.
Had it not been for Vietnam, Johnson would not have had just three years to transform America but ten (he would have run and been re-elected in 1968). Vietnam destroyed everything.
The lesson is rather obvious. Read Dallek.
LBJ's problem was that he was uninformed about international affairs. Obama seems to be a quick study so I'm hopeful that he realizes that he must have very limited objectives in Afghanistan. If not he could find himself "... waist deep in the Big Muddy..." Even then I don't think he'll be the "... the Big Fool who says to push on..."
March 13, 2009 8:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
At least Johnson had the excuse that Kennedy was a martyr who enjoyed a lot of post-mortem popularity and reverence. What is disturbing so far is that Obama seems unable even to break away from the foreign commitments and policies initiated by a failed and extremely unpopular president.
Bush is like Lyndon Johnson and Herbert Hoover rolled up together. Look at the stinking pile of foreign and domestic messes he has bequeathed this country: endless wars in two countries; foreign relationships in tatters; a reputation abroad for thuggishness and stupidity; constitutional protections shredded; government agencies turned to ineffective laughingstocks by cronyism and corruption; a mighty global financial system brought down by a made-in-America Ponzi economy. Surely Obama can persuade the country to follow a different direction.
And yet in the national security area, Obama is still trudging through the same Bush quagmire. We have too many military men running things right now, men elevated to prominence by the Bush war regime. Obama has to stop being dazzled and intimidated by all the shiny medals and fancy uniforms.
March 13, 2009 8:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
DanK says:
Agreed. Over the years I've become disillusioned with Generals and Colonels in the Pentagon. My dissatisfaction came to a head with 4 Star Air Force General Meyers who became Rumsfeld's sock puppet. The Marine General Peter Pace who succeeded Meyers was just as bad.
I fear the military has become quite politicized over the last 30 or so years, with General Officers becoming lackeys to whoever is in power.
Concern with getting their next Star or feathering their bed in the defense industry after their career is over seems to be what's important to many.
Its not the Army I served in.
By the way, I'm hoping Obama is too smart to allow Afghanistan to become his Vietnam. Time will tell.
March 13, 2009 11:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Or Iran.
Another war of choice that will sink Obama's legacy before he builds one.
March 13, 2009 1:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
myth,
truly.
March 13, 2009 2:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
As a veteran and student of the Vietnam war, I cannot recommend Dan K's comment enough.
Conundrums regarding LBJ's decisions regards our involvement in South Vietnam must be seen in light of the extraordinary pressure that he was under. Pressure put on him by the national security apparatus as well as the Pentagon. He thoroughly caved-in under the onslaught.
But in comparison to LBJ's record, those of Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon make the Texan come off as a mere innocent. MOST heinous of all is the record of Robert McNamara. Before his death, JFK had plans to begin a drawdown in U.S. forces from South Vietnam. McNamara was ALL FOR IT/100 percent.
LBJ then assumed command and the tune changed forever. McNamara instantly turned 180 degrees opposite and got with the new program, vehemently lead the charge at increasing the U.S. commitment. This included the introduction of U.S. combat forces. He has never acknowledged his hypocritical turnabout following the assassination of JFK. He and Kissinger ought to be hoisted on meathooks. As well, a congressional medal of honor should be awarded to any airman who drops a two thousand pound bomb on the gravesite outside the Nixon presidential library.
March 14, 2009 7:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
We could compare LBJ to George Bush, too. Both launched wars that were imprudent, unnecessary, and (despite the tireless spin) unsuccessful. One was broken on the wheel of disgrace and failure. One... isn't. George Bush is reviled and excoriated for the financial meltdown, but the balance of the nation, although now against the Iraq War, don't villify him for lying us into it, or resisting any attempts to "wind it down". In this country, it depends on how a war is presented. Really - even more than that - it depends on who favors the war's prosecution.
Johnson felt post-WWII communist advances in Asia must be rolled back, and he faced dangerous opposition in this global strategy, especially from a surging Soviet Union. George Bush listened to our commerical petroleum interests, who wanted to guarantee access to this crucial commodity; the imperial wing, who wanted to guarantee we'd never have to ask permission for this access, or ever ask for anything again; and, of course, the sweet talk of the Israeli Lobby, which liked the idea of an American army stationed in the middle of the Middle East - in perpetuity.
I wouldn't be a damn bit surprised if history adjudges Bush very well. Sometimes... being an absentee jackass works. And it always helps to have friends who write the history...
March 13, 2009 11:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
They both also came into office illegally with war plans already in place.
Johnson and his close friends in Texas controlled the Dallas P.D. and the judicial system, and helped the C.I.A. and Secret Service take out Kennedy.
Bush's brother was the governor of Florida, and helped take out Al Gore.
The first thing Johnson did the day after Kennedy was shot from multiple angles was to escalate Vietnam.
The first thing Bush did after coming into office was to tell his PNAC lieutenants to help find a justification to invade Iraq.
Johnson's false flag operation to seal the deal was the Gulf of Tomkin farce, and Bush's was shortly after Labor Day in 2001.
As Andrew Card would say in a slightly different context a year later, "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August."
March 13, 2009 12:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
An introduction to the JFK masterpiece of a coup for the lone gunman theorists:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-223865000828471342&ei=bIm6SeO6AZHEqQL8lqGpCA&q=JFK+2&hl=en
Note the multiple documents that tie young GHWB to the scene. This is the same guy who was in his son's White House on that fateful morning, in the basement with his former Sec Def.
It's a small, small world.
March 13, 2009 12:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
billwalker: Is there any conspiracy theory you don't ascribe to?
March 13, 2009 12:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Two in fact:
1. Saddam was conspiring with Al Quaeda;
2. Syria has Iraq's WMD.
Essentially, any piece of "intelligence" generated by Israel, I file under "fiction."
March 13, 2009 1:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Stir the pot much?
March 13, 2009 2:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Remember the U.S.S. Liberty, it could happen again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2IrelAO52M&feature=related
March 13, 2009 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey bill, have you ever read the Iliad.
Same shit, different era.
March 14, 2009 2:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well those nutty conspiracies were worse: They were actually believed by our government!
March 13, 2009 4:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
History is stuffed to the gills with generals fighting the last war and thus botching the current one. Much of America in the 1960s was convinced that Vietnam then was like Czechslovakia in 1938.
Dalleck knows his LBJ and his article is well worth reading, but the analogy to Obama is badly flawed. Obama was NOT W's VP; they are not even from the same party. Unlike today, America in 1963 was in a superpower cold war, and faced in Vietnam an anti-colonial conflict that had been raging long before any noticeable US involvement. Neither LBJ and JFK did anything like initiate a half-assed, blunder-ridden aggressive conquest, against international law and patently against the interests of the USA, as occurred in 2003. Most importantly, however, LBJ's escalation looks disastrous now (except maybe to a few of the Rambo mythologists) mainly because there was, already in 1963 and much more obviously by circa 1983, a clear alternative with low cost and low risk to the US: pullout unilaterally and let South Vietnam fall. Doing so in 1964 instead of 1975 would have saved 50 thousand US lives and a lot of Agent Orange. There were in fact no endangered dominos except the already tumbling Laos and Cambodia. Obama has no such clear alternative. This does not necessarily make his moderate sort-of-stay-the-course approach to Iraq and Afghanistan a wise choice, but he has enough tough decisions ahead without introducing the distorting fog of non-applicable historical precedents.
March 13, 2009 4:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Have you seen this, M.J.?
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=88491§ionid=351020202
March 14, 2009 2:33 AM | Reply | Permalink