After being thoroughly thumped by the voters, and struggling to keep his poll numbers above 30%, George Bush heads to Vietnam, a country whose war he avoided (checked the "no" box when asked if he would volunteer for overseas duty), and, more tragically, whose lessons he did not learn. The idea that a Vietnam-era no-show would even utter the word "quit" and use that war to cheerlead continued loss of US life, limbs and treasure without being excoriated by the press is intolerable. Daddy may have kept him from Vietnam, rescued him from his failed company while his co-investors lost, enrolled him at Yale and then Harvard Business School, provided the basis for his participation with the Texas Rangers, but even Daddy's friends, it seems, cannot teach George anything worthwhile about history.
The parallels between Vietnam and Iraq have been addressed. Several key points deserve comment.
Proponents of the Iraq War try to distinguish Vietnam by asserting that, in that war, our losing would not have increased the danger of attacks inside the United States whereas with Iraq, they assert, such an exigency is likely if we withdraw. This is John McCain's major argument for raising troop levels. How quickly they forget. At the time of Vietnam, the official line was that we were threatened by the "red menace", and that we needed to fight them in Saigon to keep us from having to fight them in San Francisco. Sound familiar?
One of the arguments made by Vietnam War opponents was that our military action actually accomplished precisely the opposite of what supporters asserted was the major rationale for the war. Vietnam, supporters said, was a client state for China (that we called "Red China") and the Soviet Union, and so the war was a major theater in the struggle against Communism. Ho Chi Minh was, indeed, a communist. But, he was first and foremost a nationalist, who fought the French, the Japanese, the French again and then the United States. In fact, Vietnam had an historical enmity to China, an observation confirmed by the border war with China that started shortly after the United States exited Vietnam. During the war, we drove Ho Chi Minh into the arms of China, accomplishing precisely the opposite of what we claimed were our key aims. We also succeeded in destabilizing Cambodia, leading to the ascension of the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge, and then the conquest by Vietnam, turning the "domino theory" into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Similarly, fighting in Iraq is somehow to reduce the worldwide terrorist threat. Like the Vietnam strategy, however,the Iraq War is accomplishing precisely the opposite. Not only is Iraq the major recruiter for more terrorists, with another grievance against western boots on muslim soil and the feeling of humiliation arising from powerlessness, but its course can hardly be convincing to neighboring states to move toward democracy. [Where the idea that creating a democracy in the middle east would set off regional democratization came from is puzzling. Turkey became a western style democracy in the 1920s, and Lebanon was a democracy of sorts prior to the civil war: neither had any impact on the other countries in their vicinity.]
Like Vietnam, the Iraq war weakens the United States and emboldens its enemies. Daddy kept George Bush from experiencing the Vietnam quagmire. Daddy's minions will not rescue us from the Iraqi quicksand into which he, stupidly, arrogantly, led us. Now he dares deceive us again by lying about the lessons of Vietnam.
( For a more in-depth treatment, see, "Vietnam & Iraq: From Quaqmire to Quicksand").
