There were a lot of lessons to be taken from the Vietnam War. But how many agree with the one George Bush identified during his first visit to the nation, words to the effect of “stay the course”?
Reflecting on the changes since the war and the fall of Saigon, Bush talked of history’s long march and emphasized the time it can take for an “ideology of freedom” to “overcome an ideology of hate.”
He added: “We’ll succeed, unless we quit.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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70 Comments
Bush got his pic taken in front of Ho Chi Ming. Perhaps next Hanoi Bush will take one in front of Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden and Hitler. This draft dodging frat boy still thinks the Vietnam War is a good idea and killing another 60,000 Americans would be acceptable. Of course it’d be acceptable for him since he was hiding in Alabama at the time.
It tells you something when Bush gets Henry Kissinger to advise him on Iraq. One war criminal advises another war criminal, just keep on sending young Americans to die for your glory. The neo-cons cannot satisfy their blood lust and greed.
Rhonda — Opera? Ballet? Remember? Just exactly what would you have him do ? Call them “gooks” and say we should have killed them all while we had the chance? You just don’t have a clue, do you ?
Not just longer Rhonda, but actually fought in North Vietnam.
We should have authorized a full scall assualt on the North completely taking them out and thus stopping them from their invasion of the south.
There are many other things we could nit-pick about, but yeah, we should not have left.
We turned our back on the people in the south and let them die.
I suppose there is a comparison between the Iraq war and Vietnam war:
Both wars the leftists have called for us to leave and let people die.
Actually, rm, Rhonda just noticed the self-evident irony of Bush’s comments.
It didn’t take an Edward R. Murrow to do that, but it was better than your vapid comments, anyway.
I’m not sure what all those questions mean, But I’d like to comment on what I would have ‘HIM’ do. I’d have him firstly pick a war, not wage more than one at a time. (ask Hitler how that turns out)Secondly, I’d have him not LIE to all of America about his reasons and purpose for going to war.Thirdly, I would have him resign from Presidency and admit that he was wrong. They tried to impeach Clinton for getting a BJ. The crap that Bush has pulled is way more wrong than that. If you have any sense at all, try weighing these two faux pas. Got a blowjob from an intern: Took our country to war under false pretense. Seems like even sensible Republicans caught on finally, hense the election.
Doug “the new Dem”,
Lets get some of your statements correct:
>”(ask Hitler how that turns out)”
Hitler was fighting major battles on two fronts in opposition to Russia, America, and Britian throwing everything they had at them with deaths in the tens of thousands.
Hardly similar to our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
>”I’d have him not LIE to all of America about his reasons and purpose for going to war.”
What lie was told? Intelligence turned out to be faulty, but that is not a lie.
>”They tried to impeach Clinton for getting a BJ.”
They tried to impeach Clinton for telling a lie under oath to a grand jury about a BJ.
I love it… some are saying that just a few more years and more military committment would have won Vietnam? Dear God help us all. This is how we continue to make the same mistakes over and over.
No one seems to understand history… First, defeating the enemny on the battlefield does not win a war!!!!! God people, stop and think of the effort required for the Nazis to control the countries they invaded.
THE LIE IS THAT THE INTELLIGENCE WAS COOKED! Please, just because you choose to ignore the facts, don’t pass it off as being true. Read something other than the Republican talking points and the White House news releases. The AEI and PNAC members came into this administration with only one thought… and that was to remove Saddam. 9/11 was simply an excuse.
You want facts? Go back and look for opposing views on the intelligence leading up to the war. Not EVERYONE believed that the info selected by the administration was accurate.
You have 2 conflicting pieces of evidence… one supports the admin. the other doesn’t. Which do you give more weight to? There are lies of comission and lies of omission… this admin. is pack with people who lied by witholding the truth and denigrating anyone that opposed their view.
Why, in the face of the evidence that this President was WRONG in so many circumstances do people still try to support him? I guess they just don’t want to face the fact that they have been duped!!!!!
Oh, btw… the persecution of the BJ by President Clinton was a sham. They were going to get him no matter what it took… again, go back and read your friendly Repubs. statements from even before he was sworn in the first time.
I wish to God I would have been able to counsel him because I would have, from the start, had him tell people that it was, “None of their damn business!”
Nathan:1) Darn my history class recollection, because I thought we didn’t get into the war til Hitler had done invaded all kinds of countries.2) How long ago did you figure out that the “intelligence” was faulty? Surely G.W. figured that out a long time before you did. And if that was just and ‘oops’, when is the right time to tell America that you made an ‘oopsie’ if you are the President?3) >They tried to impeach Clinton for telling a lie under oath to a grand jury about a BJ.<Yeah, well, everything a US President in office says, should be under oath to a Grand Jury. You want to rake Bush under them coals?
I oppose the Bush administration on almost every aspect, but he did the right things here by visiting Vietnam. The North was in the right and we shouldn’t have interfered with their elections. We were poor sports and should have accepted the results and worked with them instead of trying to kill them.
As best I recall, the war in Viet Nam was primarily prosecuted under Democratic administrations. Nixon simply inheirited it from Kennedy and Johnson. Of course, many of us were in country at the time, so we may have missed a lot. News travels slowly in rice paddies and jungles.
As a conservative, I have continuously opposed the war in Iraq and Afghanistan if for no other reason than both of them combined are not worth a single American life.
And now that it’s obvious that Rage is hopelessly enamored with Rhonda, I have a single simple question. Rage, are you her husband or her wife? I wish you a long and joyous relationship.
You people are incredible.
Right, Wrong or Indifferent…We all live with South Vietnamese blood on our hands. You can try to place blame in one place but end up generalizing everything.
Save room on your hands for even more Iraqi blood once the perceived popular opinion forces the United States out of Iraq. I hope you all sleep well at night bashing President Bush or whoever replaces him in 2008.
hahahahahahahahahahahaha hilarious!!! that someone actually still believes we COULD have won a war in vietnam / iraq!
wow.
yeah perhaps a few more months of carpet bombing would have done the trick…
BOTTOM LINE — IT’S ALL ABOUT OIL.
WE HAVE NO LEADERS WITH VISION CREDIBLE OR CAPABLE ENOUGH TO MANDATE AN ENERGY POLICY THAT WILL PRECLUDE ANY MORE WARS FOR OIL. IT TAKES COMMITMENT TO CHANGE – SORELY LACKING IN OUR POLITICIANS AND THE AMERICAN PUBLIC.
WE ARE A SPOILED ARROGANT SOCIETY, DEDICATED TO THE CONCEPT INDIVIDUALLY OF “MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY” — UNFORTUNATELY WE HAVE NEVER REALIZED THAT “MIGHT” DOESN’T ALWAYS MAKE RIGHT.
IKE WAS VISIONARY WHEN HE SAID “… BEWARE THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX …”
Nathan, so how is us staying there keeping people from dying? I know the killing would escalate if we leave….and we really can’t do that to the Iraqis, but staying isn’t going to prevent the insurgency from the destruction they’re causing now. To them it’s a religious and idealogical war, there is no compromising with them. They see us as invading their holy land and they have a score to settle that will not go away in my lifetime or your’s. Your can’t reason with people who are that unreasonable, I don’t see how we can save them from their extremism…they don’t care if they die, in fact they WANT to die.What is your solution to all this? What, to you, would be a workable plan?Hope you’re doing well, we think about you a lot here at home and wish you the best.
Eisenhower was the first US president to meddle in Vietnam and this started the Vietnam war – not JFK or Johnson. Nixon would have been very obliging to “stay the course” but he wanted to make political points and he knew where the American public was on that war and he was not about to cross the majority of voters for political reasons.
I’m tired of hearing these military dudes saying we just need to go in there and wipe them off the earth. Doesn’t that sound alot like the Muslims talking about wiping out all non-Muslims?
To win a war we will need more than military strength – we need leadership that is broadminded enough to see the whole picture and the Bush Administration has NEVER seen the whole picture. Their only concern was how much profit can we few people make off this Iraq War that other people’s children are dying for?
I like the neo-cons on this board ” we should have bombed them into the stone age”…typical one dimensional thinking. Did it ever occur to you that the terrorists are a small group, but because of hateful neo con policies, now EVERONE hates us? Just how stupid are you Neo Cons? From your fearless leader, hiding under his moms dress during his war, to the current crop of draft dodgers inhabiting the whitehouse, while waving flags with the poor people’s kids blood on it. They should all be tried for war crimes and hung by the neck, for their treason
Has anyone tried to look at it from the view of the Iraqis? The sunnis were actually very liberal and progressive as far as muslims go. The Shia are the repressive, wife killing for honor kind of people. Now you answer me damn honestly and tell me if this happened in America, and the Shia took over here, would YOU just lay down and be ok with that?
Hell no, you’d pick up guns and start fighting no matter what entity said to stop. Saddam may have been an evil dictator, but maybe he knew that he had to be to keep those kind of people from running the country.
Nathan, please remember that we launched a full scale invasion of North Korea during the Korean conflict and all that got us were human waves of Chinese soldiers swarming accross the border to drive us back. What makes you think that if we had launched a full scale invasion of North Vietnam that the Chinese would not have human waved us again?
I guess 58,000 dead Americans and 2,000,000 dead Vietnamese was not enough blood to slake Nathan’s thirst?
Military types don’t care about the cost of war in human lives – they only want to go in and wipe out everybody and everything all in the name of might makes right. No thinking – just going in with guns blazing.
Military types don’t think about the cleanup afterwards – they are usually off somewhere hoisting a few beers to their good work.
Darren7160:
If Bush cooked the intelligence against Iraq, as you claim, can you tell us how he managed to get Bill Clinton to say Iraq had WMD, launch a preemptive strike against Iraq, and claim that Iraq and al Qaaeda were cooperating on weapons development?
HTTP://WWW.RETROACTIVEIMPEACHMENT.COM
History lessons:
Ike began the Vietnam misadventure, JFK continued the relatively limited involvement. LBJ expanded the war after misusing the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
LBJ was a Democrat in name only. Were he alive today, he would be a Republican a la Richard Shelby of Alabama.
LBJ dropped his candidacy for the presidency in 1968 AFTER it was obvious that he stood a very good possibility of being the first sitting president to be defeated by his own party in a reelection bid. RFK would have easily won the Democratic nonination over LBJ.
Nixon ran in 1968 under the guise of having a “plan” to end the war. After taking office in January of 1969, RMN expanded the war “effort.”
The War in Vietnam was unwinnable because the US did not have the support of the people of South Vietnam. The government of SV was corrupt and ineffective. Vietnam was a proxy war between the US and the Soviet Union. No amount of bombing was able to dissuade the North Vietnamese.
In the end, it didn’t matter when we pulled out of Vietnam – the result was predetermined. The result would have been the same had it been 1968, 1972 or even 1982. Without the active support of the SV people, the war could not have been won.
Fast forward to 2006 – the Iraqi people want us out of Iraq. That much is clear. It is only the weak and corrupt “government” of Iraq (and al Qaeda) that wants us to continue our involvement in a losing cause.
Just as with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, the prewar intelligence was cooked to support the administrations desire to go to war – reference the Downing street memos. Even the most ardent supporter of Bush have to admit that the “evidence” of WMD was cherry picked to support the Neocon position. After it was obvious that there were no WMD, Bush quickly changed the rational for going to war – now we are trying to spread democracy.
As was Vietnam, the War on Iraq is unwinnable because the people of Iraq do not support us.
It’s time to get out before we lose more American lives.
Class mismissed.
The intelligence that Bush and his cronies went with was suspect intelligence at best. There were others that doubted the validity of the intelligence but yet Bush insisted on going ahead with the intelligence. Why? Maybe because the intelligence gave him the perfect opportunity for him to go in and invade Iraq like he was planning to do even before taking office?
As a general knowledge, I do think the whole world thought Saddam had WMD’s but then again, why not, wasn’t it Daddy Bush and Reagan that gave Saddam weapons in the first place?
There is alot more to this pre-war intelligence than we the general pulbic will ever know. And I’m not holding my breath for George W. Bush to tell me the truth because I don’t believe his track record of truth telling is very good.
If anything should have been learned from Vietnam was the “Stay the course” does not work.Some points: How long have we been in Iraq? three years and already it is felt as a real mistake even by Blair of the U.K. Look at Vietnam from the P.O.V. of the average common man in Vietnam. They had been at war for three generation, their own government was not protecting them from being killed. Their “Saviors” were not protecting them from being killed, The N.V.A and the V.C. were killing them if they would work with or even talk to the enemy. The heart and desire of the common man was gone, they saw no one winning or protecting them. after forty five years, they just wanted to be able to sleep without fear no matter who was leading them. To be able to work and support their family without having to face the possibility of being killed by one side or the other.
From the soldier of the South, he was expected to fight and die for a leader that even if he won life would be no better. Often he had no choice, kidnapped from his home and forced to fight. Is there any wonder there were so many stories of Vietnam soldiers and American soldiers marching side by side. Then just before all hell would break loose the ROV soldiers would just disappear! True, from those that served in Vietnam I have heard stories and reasons why we should have been there. One that stuck out was from a Sailor on a river boat and after finding the entire family of the village chief had been raped and then disembowel for the chief simply saying he had not seen any V.C. to the question if he had seen any in the area. Talking to the U.S. Military meant a death sentence. He said that someone had to stop such things and such people.
There are many lessons from Vietnam and it would seem many comparisons between had happened in Vietnam and Iraq. But one that comes to mind is, if the people you are there to protect and to fight for do not see you as a savior and more the cause of their continued suffering. They will not and can not support you being there.
Get your history straight for starters professor.RFK didn’t announce his candidacy until after Johnson’s announcement he wouldn’t seek a second term.I think the left wing wants Iraq to be another Vietnam because just you all are hoping the near civil war the counter culture attemplted to start in the US of the 60’s may just stick this time and you’ll have the government you want in place.But guess what? John Lennon is dead and your counter culture capital and Berkeley is filled with mostly foreign students who want the education and then to go home (this is fact but said in jest).
A point needs to be clarified concerning Bill Clinton’s knowledge of WMD, etc.
In the late ’90’s, Saddam refused to allow the UN inspectors to do their jobs. It was assumed that he had restarted his WMD program – why else would he refuse inspection? That is the reason that Clinton felt Saddam was up to his old tricks.
In 2001-2002 and early 2003, the UN inspectors, led by Hans Blix, WERE doing their jobs and had not found evidence of WMD or a program to develop WMD.
In March of 2003, on the eve of the invasion, the UN inspectors had to leave Iraq to avoid being caught up in the war. Had they continued their work, it would have been obvious to the world that there were no WMD.
As for al Qaeda, it was well known BEFORE March 2003 that Saddam and bin Laden were on opposite side of the fence. Al Qaeda had repeatly called for an overthrow of the Iraqi president. There was absolutely no evidence of a connection between Saddam and 9/11.
“Get your history straight for starters professor.”
Nice try – I never said that LBJ declined to run again because of RFK – I said that he was fearful of not gaining his own party’s nomination.
There was a significant anti-war element within the Democratic Party in 1967 and 1968. LBJ was viewed with distrust by a large portion of his own party.
Eugene McCarthy had already broken with the Democratic establishment when LBJ made his announcement. It was over for Johnson and he know it.
As for RFK – read your history – he had taken the lead for the Democratic nomination in june of 1968 when he was assasinated.
As for an American civil war brought on by the Sixties counterculture – I was there and you are full of $%&*. There was no desire for a war, civil or otherwise.
Just as there is no desire for war now.
the libs have crippled chances of success to bring about their own warped glory via anti war rhetoric. I’m ready for civil war in the usa. lets divide up.
Nahhh Darrel. Just you get your other brother Darrel, some hard tack and shotguns and get on over to Iraq and give them towelheads what for!
Here ya go, darrel. Let’s just see what you get.
California’s Letter of Secession
Dear President Bush:
Congratulations on your victory over all us non-evangelicals. Actually, we’re a bit ticked off here in California, so we’re leaving you. California will now be its own country. And we’re taking all the Blue States with us. In case you are not aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, all of the North East States, and the urban half of Ohio.
We spoke to God, and she agrees that this split will be beneficial to almost everybody, and especially to us in the new country of California. In fact, God is so excited about it, she’s going to shift the whole country at 4:30 pm EST this Friday. Therefore, please let everyone know they need to be back in their states by then. God is going to give us the Pacific Ocean and Hollywood. In addition, we’re getting San Diego. (Sorry, that’s just how it goes.) But God is letting you have the KKK and country music (except the Dixie Chicks).
Just so we’re clear, the country of California will be pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, and anti-war. Speaking of war, we’re going to need all Blue States citizens back from Iraq. If you need people to fight in Falujah, just ask your evangelical voters. They have tons of kids they’re willing to send to their deaths for absolutely no purpose. And they don’t care if you don’t show pictures of their kids’ caskets coming home.
So, you get Texas and all the former slave states, and we get the Governator and stem cell research. (We would love you to take Britney Spears off our hands, though. She IS from the south, right?)
Since we get New York, you’ll have to come up with your own late night TV shows because we get MTV, Letterman, the Daily Show, and Conan O’Brien. You get… well, why don’t you ask your people at Fox News to come up with something entertaining? (Maybe you should just watch Crossfire. That’s a really funny show.)
We wish you all the best in the next four years and we hope, really hope, you find those missing weapons of mass destruction. Seriously. Soon.
Sincerely,California
“And now that it’s obvious that Rage is hopelessly enamored with Rhonda, I have a single simple question. Rage, are you her husband or her wife? I wish you a long and joyous relationship.”
HAHAHAHA! Ohhh, that’s wonderful! Enjoy the splendid irony of THIS one, old-timers! You’re certainly full of surprises, rm!
Don’t really have time to contribute today, so I now return you to your regularly scheduled program.
The problem with bushys is that they cannot believe that Iraq was a nessary step in the war on terror instead of a disastrous sidestep away from it. We should have stayed in Afghanistan until the job was done (true to Doug’s correct Hitler analogy)
Handled properly, Afghanistan could have served as a beacon to the world of our intentions and our effective delivery of those intentions. On the eve of our invasion of Afghanistan, the non-Taliban Afghani people were unanimous in one request: that we not forsake them as they percieved us to have done following the Russian withdrawl. That sentiment gave us license to move a huge presence into that country and keep it there indefinitely. The common Afghani didn’t want us to abandon them.
Making Afghanistan the focus of our war would have put the bulk of our military strategically at the bridge between East and Middle east, on Russia’s doorstep and close to Europe. This is a strategist’s dream spot. We could have used the country of Afghanistan as a large mega-base for as long as we wanted. The result would have been the complete eradication of the Taliban and Al Kaida there (a process which would have battle-hardened our fighting people in a far more friendly and stable country than Iraq) Osama would be dead and we would have eradicated the opium growers -Did you know that 87% of the world’s opium for heroin still comes from Afghanistan? What do you think the proceeds from this drug money is financing? Look at what region the London terror plot came from. Feel safer?
Money would have come from the numerous military bases we could have put in Afghanistan. That money would have trickled down and been a shot in the arm to their fledgeling economy. This would have eliminated Afghanistan’s reliance on opium, made them very welcoming of our presence, and newfound prosperity among Afghanis could have been a beacon to the world of our intentions, morality, success, wealth and power as well as our generosity toward rewarding those who help us in this war.
The long range result of such a plan, had we a President with the wisdom and restraint to pursue it, would be a massive, well trained and equiped army situated at the crossroads of the world. In light of this, any “Clinton Military” blameisms fall flat. Recruiting for Afghanistan in the wake of 911 was through the roof. Hell, we had roll models like Tillman walking away from his multimillion dollar contract to join the fight. We would have had the advantage of America having the respect and leverage of the global community behind our next venture and the army to carry it out right.
Had we followed this course, we could have taken Iraq, not with BS storys of WMD’s, drones, BioLabs, and nuclear evidence-all of which has been cast into serious doubt or wholly debunked. We could have come honestly to the UN and given the real reasons that we all know of why Saddam needed removed from power. It would have taken at least two or three more years to have properly built up the invasion force and time and diplomacy to build up world support for an invasion of Iraq, but the end result would have not been an embarrassing quagmire that will haunt and tarnish us into the foreseeable future.
The same honesty we would have used to the world community should have been spoken to congress and Americans like me and you. That truthfulness, along with a well defined separation and distinction between the terror war & the Iraq war would have resulted in the die-hard trust and support of myself and the rest of the truth-based community. Left and right America united without controversy behind Bush.
If we had a president with the insight to see what a strategic gift Afghanistan truly was and who would have exploited that knowledge to conduct a massive buildup there in preparation for the coming Iraq invasion, we could have taken Iraq with far more than the forces we had or even the forces wise voices like Shinseki called for, but far, far more. Enough to render Iran and Syria irrelevant, muzzled and cornered. More than enough to allow William Wallace to have doubled back as he requested in order to get the Fedayeen (one major nucleus of the insurgency) with enough still to impose law and order from the get-go and prevent looting. We would have had troops left over to secure the Al Qaqa’a ammo dump-keeping 380 tons of high explosives out of insurgent hands, and enough to end the insurgency before it could have begun to even take root.
We would have went to a war we were prepared for, not with a Rumsfeldian “army you have, not the one you wish you had”. That remark (excuse?!) is ridiculous in the face of the fact that WE chose the timing of the war and even then we had the resources to provide Shinseki’s 500,000. That remark alone should be grounds for Rumsfeld’s immediate dismissal.
A young wolf once said to his father “Let’s run down there and get one of those sheep”. To which the wise, patient father replied “No son, let’s walk down and get them all.”
When I think about what could have been; how and why we blew our generation’s historic call to greatness, it just plain disgusts me.
Bone – Amen and well done!
The people of this country consistently underestimate, dehumanize, and berate citizens of other countries. We arrogantly invade other countries assuming that technology alone will see us through, and that the inferiority of the citizens of other nations (think Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich) will make for an easy victory.
Just as the arrogance of Nazi Germany was soundly defeated, so has the US been shown the consequences of such arrogance.
Interesting reading all the Liberal Manifesto right out of the handbook.
-I stand corrected on my dates WS.By civil war I was referring to revolution, armed or not.
-Funny stuff RD. However we are the one’s with a Republican Governor. Your letter should have come from Kansas!
It’s clear to America that Bush is clueless. Except for that “faith based” 32% that can seem to get past their cognitive dissonance about the facts not supporting their blind trust in lying President! Thinking must go something like: ” G. W. is a Christian, and he does not lie, evidence shows that he lied… “zzzzt” facts must be wrong…. because G. W. is a Christian and… etc. ad nauseum.”Wake up folks. The answer to winning wars is not all military might! That’s why the consensus now is NOT to either send more troops or have less troops in Iraq. The answer is NOT A MILITARY SOLUTION!! Just to remind you, they ain’t greeting us a liberators. Get it? No? Okay, I’ll spell it out: R-E-S-P-E-C-T!We do not respect the sovereignty of other nations or even of our own citizens. “Peace begins with us.” As Nancy Pelosi is now calling for.
The only thing this blog shows is that we should not look to editorial boards for insightful comment. Where has good journalism gone? This certainly isn’t Kansas, anymore.
Great post, Bone. This is harsh, way harsh, but I guess we get what we deserve when we elect and further empower a president who is completely incurious about history and the great currents flowing beneath it. At the very least, Bush’s incuriosity allowed him to entertain — to ACT ON — the neoconservatives lunatic visions, whole-spun out of nothing more than dogma.
How we ever got to the place where we not only elected an idiot but gave him all the additional power he wants is such a sad commentary on the USA. It has got to go down in history as one of the all-time worst aggregate, national reactions to fear (compounded by greed) of all time. Very likely ranks right up there with Troy’s reaction to a wooden horse standing before the city.
Great post, Pedeant. Speak the truth.
KIA, I didn’t write the California Secession letter. It’s been floating around the Internet for over 2 years. I doubt Kansas would be among the states California would even want, in spite of your comment about our “republican governor.” Isn’t the governor of california a repub?
We’ll never win a war against an enemy that wants to die unless we, like our extremist enemies, are willing to die.We’ll never be willing to die unless we believe in heaven.We’ll never believe in a heaven unless we believe in God.We’ll never believe in God unless we stop thinking we are gods.
In conclusion, we will never win against an enemy that believes (no matter how skewed)that dying for a higher purpose and promise of eternity is worth dying for.This is a spiritual battle, the weapons are more spiritual than philisophical or military.
Bob Dylan said is best “You gotta serve somebody, it may be the devil it may be the Lord, but you gotta serve somebody”
The extremists think they are serving God, who are you serving?It’s not always easy to tell, but not impossible to figure out.
RD – I guess I read that all wrong.I was joking that with the Republican Governor, California would be less likely to seceed that Kansas with a Democrat.
But we do have the 5th largest economy in the world. A native Californian tongue in cheek comment as well is is the Pilgrims landed here, nothing else would have ever been discovered :-)
Good one, KIA, about the Pilgrims. :)
I think the comment about the repub gov in Cali is more about the fact that he is sometimes more liberal than conservative. Chalk that up to Maria? *grin*
If given the choice of where to live, I’d choose either the Pacific NW or the Atlantic NE. And here I am, landlocked. *sigh*
Welcome to the WEBlog, Diana, good post.
The amount of bickering we do here makes absolutely no difference to who lives or dies in Iraq.
Once we invaded and stayed for the occupation, the die was cast.
Stay for fifty years or pull out tomorrow, put more troops in or pull more troops out . . . it will not alter the outcome one whit.
We’re like Sisyphus, a mighty titan forced to roll a rock up a mountain only to have it roll back down everytime it gets to the top.
Except that we imposed this futile rock-rolling on ourselves.
“We’ll never be willing to die unless we believe in heaven.”Posted by: Diana | November 19, 2006 at 01:34 PM
Ridiculous. Romans died free of fear, and they didn’t believe in hell either. (you have to believe in hell before heaven has any of the appeal you ascribe to it)
More recently, the Japanese share with the ancient Romans a fundamental belief in personal honor above all. Granted, buttressed by Shinto gods, but certainly independent of a belief in a mystical hell. For these peoples, successful warriors all, a more proximate driving force was that hell could be defined as a lack of honor and thus lived here in this life.
Your assertions are part of the problem, not the solution.
I’m still trying to figure out exactly what Diana is saying.
RD, I’m in! Great plan. One nation under God (Why? Because She likes it on top).Darrel, how’d that civil war thing go for you guys last time?
RD – Although I count myself as part of the religious right, I was fortunate enough to attend a luncheon with him last year. My lasting impression, he wears a ton of make up(this both literally and figuratively – he isn’t that impressive of a speaker or in policies, so those don’t leave an impression and he really did wear a ton of make up).However, Arnold is the likely future of the Republican party and politics in general.
-Get a good looking famous face (actor or athlete) that is basically a puppet regime-Fiscal conservative, socially moderate to liberal.-Wrap up in whatever package (Republican or Democrat) is popular at the moment-Sell it baby.
What point is the Idiot trying to make? We now have achieved victory, by allowing another communist government into WTO ( or did congress shut that one down??Or is it, if we’d have kept fighting them over the last 30 yrs., we’d have won? Might have, would have exteminated the population by now.
They should invite Turkey into the soulution also, as they will no doubt bea a player. Looks to me like Baker is just recognizing the inevitable, Iran will get some more territory, Syria will also, the Kurds will be SOL againg, so they will also join in the fighting. Going to happen after we leave, may as well get it started now, withdraw, and state that it is a regional issue.
Henry Kissinger bails on “victory” in Iraq–
“If you mean, by ‘military victory,’ an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies willsupport, I don’t believe that is possible,” Kissinger told the BBC’s “Sunday AM” program.
Thanks for that quote Capn. So, no WMDs, the administration’s selling point for going to war. No possibility of establishing a democratic nation, the administration’s selling point for staying the course in Iraq, after it was determined that Iraq had no WMD’s.
Can somebody tell us then, WHY ARE WE IN IRAQ? Can the administration PLEASE come up with a new ( third) selling point, not previously disclosed? Because otherwise, we little Americans are getting kinda disillusioned over this debacle.
Guess it’s because we have to honor the fallen, by having more falling! If the Sunnies and Shiites hold to the same philosophy, we’ll have the never ending war, the Administrations’ wet dream.
So Nathan thinks we should have killed/annihilated the North Vietnamese, who wanted self determined government and left the Country to the South Vietnamese since they agreed with us. That may come in handy, in Iraq, if we’re willing to help with the genocide of one religious sect over the other. Starting to sound like the Shiites are reaching the conclusion that they are nearly strong enough to get the job done on their own. When they do, they will attack Americans if we do not leave voluntarily, as they will have no further need for us. I think they believe that is what Bush means by standing up so we can stand down. And, maybe they have it right.
For those of you who support GWB and his war — now’s your chance to put up or shut up:
WASHINGTON (Nov. 19) – Americans would have to sign up for a new military draft after turning 18 under a bill the incoming chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee says he will introduce next year.
Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., said Sunday he sees his idea as a way to deter politicians from launching wars. “There’s no question in my mind that this president and this administration would never have invaded Iraq, especially on the flimsy evidence that was presented to the Congress, if indeed we had a draft and members of Congress and the administration thought that their kids from their communities would be placed in harm’s way,” Rangel said.Rangel, a veteran of the Korean War who has unsuccessfully sponsored legislation on conscription in the past, has said the all-volunteer military disproportionately puts the burden of war on minorities and lower-income families.Rangel said he will propose a measure early next year. While he said he is serious about the proposal, there is little evident support among the public or lawmakers for it.In 2003, Rangel proposed a measure covering people age 18 to 26. It was defeated 402-2 the following year. This year, he offered a plan to mandate military service for men and women between age 18 and 42; it went nowhere in the Republican-led Congress.Democrats will control the House and Senate come January because of their victories in the Nov. 7 election.At a time when some lawmakers are urging the military to send more troops to Iraq, “I don’t see how anyone can support the war and not support the draft,” said Rangel, who also proposed a draft in January 2003, before the U.S. invasion of Iraq. “I think to do so is hypocritical.”Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who is a colonel in the U.S. Air Force Standby Reserve, said he agreed that the U.S. does not have enough people in the military.”I think we can do this with an all-voluntary service, all-voluntary Army, Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy. And if we can’t, then we’ll look for some other option,” said Graham, who is assigned as a reserve judge to the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals.Rangel, the next chairman of the House tax-writing committee, said he worried the military was being strained by its overseas commitments.”If we’re going to challenge Iran and challenge North Korea and then, as some people have asked, to send more troops to Iraq, we can’t do that without a draft,” Rangel said.He said having a draft would not necessarily mean everyone called to duty would have to serve. Instead, “young people (would) commit themselves to a couple of years in service to this great republic, whether it’s our seaports, our airports, in schools, in hospitals,” with a promise of educational benefits at the end of service.Graham said he believes the all-voluntary military “represents the country pretty well in terms of ethnic makeup, economic background.”Repeated polls have shown that about seven in 10 Americans oppose reinstatement of the draft and officials say they do not expect to restart conscription.Outgoing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told Congress in June 2005 that “there isn’t a chance in the world that the draft will be brought back.”Yet the prospect of the long global fight against terrorism and the continuing U.S. commitment to stabilizing Iraq have kept the idea in the public’s mind.The military drafted conscripts during the Civil War, both world wars and between 1948 and 1973. An agency independent of the Defense Department, the Selective Service System, keeps an updated registry of men age 18-25 – now about 16 million – from which to supply untrained draftees that would supplement the professional all-volunteer armed forces.
W.S.,”As for an American civil war brought on by the Sixties counterculture – I was there and you are full of $%&*. There was no desire for a war, civil or otherwise.”
I was there too, and yes, there were a few radical groups- Weathermen, Black Panthers, Yippies, Symbionese Liberation Front, maybe even the Manson clan calling for civil war. These, of course were tiny groups trying to kindle the fires of rebellion with rather damp matches, and I wouldn’t say nobody paid attention to them, but in the larger scheme of events, they were markedly unsuccessful!The war in Viet Nam actually started immediately after WWII, when France tried to reclaim it’s former colonies in Indochina after leaving the people there on their own to deal with the Japanese invaders (they had a few problems of their own to deal with). After they were booted out with the fall of Dien Ben Phu, our goverment, plagued by cold war fears of communist world domination, offered aid to the vastly corrupt (and Catholic) Diem regime of the south in the form of military advisors and arms. When this failed to stop the Viet Cong rebels, we began increasing our aid, until the supposed Gulf of Tonkin incident gave us an excuse to take over the fighting from the ineffectual Diem Bros.That war, like this one, was sold to the American people on specious grounds- the so-called Domino Theory, that if we lost in Viet Nam, all of southeast asia would fall under communist domination. Didn’t happen!Well, here we are again folks, stampeded into repeating the history we ignored first time around! Maybe next time…………..!
Uncle Ho fought alongside GI’s against Dai Nippon in Indo-China. Too bad, the US stabbed him in the back by choosing to support French’s colonial thirst. Just like in the Philippines 50 years before, the mood was simply saying the Browns are too stupid to manage their own national destinies.
Not only fought beside GI’s but was trained by the OSS to fighht the Japanese. You do remember who the OSS was, right? The precurser to the CIA, who trained al- Qaeda. Wow, talk about history repeating itself.
I wish Bush Sr. would do a better job of telling Jr what to think, so we could get the hell out of Iraq!Until then, he’s stuck in Alfred E. Newman land i.e., lost in space without a clue.
gster,Every once in a while I get to read Woodward’s _State of Denial_ and I note how Bush, Jr. is being portrayed as incompetent, disinterested in his job, and how those surrounding him are in a constant fight to have influence over policy (Bremer, Powell, & Rumsfeld). I’m sure there must be some Greek tragedy that is similar to this story. I swear there have been times in reading that book, where I think GWBush’s administration is alot what it would be like if my 14 yr old son was the leader of the free world. A very scary thought.
Steven Davis- Yes, I agree. I read that book and was continually amazed at the imcompetence shown by so many key players.
There was little or no thought or planning regarding post-invasion Iraq- it didn’t seem to matter!
Robert McNamara’s 11 lessons from Vietnam:
• We misjudged then — and we have since — the geopolitical intentions of our adversaries … and we exaggerated the dangers to the United States of their actions.
• We viewed the people and leaders of South Vietnam in terms of our own experience … We totally misjudged the political forces within the country.
• We underestimated the power of nationalism to motivate a people to fight and die for their beliefs and values.
• Our judgments of friend and foe alike reflected our profound ignorance of the history, culture, and politics of the people in the area, and the personalities and habits of their leaders.
• We failed then — and have since — to recognize the limitations of modern, high-technology military equipment, forces and doctrine…
• We failed as well to adapt our military tactics to the task of winning the hearts and minds of people from a totally different culture.
• We failed to draw Congress and the American people into a full and frank discussion and debate of the pros and cons of a large-scale military involvement … before we initiated the action.
• After the action got under way and unanticipated events forced us off our planned course … we did not fully explain what was happening and why we were doing what we did.
• We did not recognize that neither our people nor our leaders are omniscient. Our judgment of what is in another people’s or country’s best interest should be put to the test of open discussion in international forums. We do not have the God-given right to shape every nation in our image or as we choose.
• We did not hold to the principle that U.S. military action … should be carried out only in conjunction with multinational forces supported fully (and not merely cosmetically) by the international community.
• We failed to recognize that in international affairs, as in other aspects of life, there may be problems for which there are no immediate solutions … At times, we may have to live with an imperfect, untidy world.
• Underlying many of these errors lay our failure to organize the top echelons of the executive branch to deal effectively with the extraordinarily complex range of political and military issues.
Such a contrast between Bush’s visit to Vietnam and Clinton’s. When Clinton visited people camped overnight to see him and was surrounded by thousands of people eager to get a glimpse of him. When Bush arrived in Vietnam one person greeted him, and he was an American.
Everywhere Hanoi Bush goes, he is hated.
Pentagon review on options for Iraq: “Go big, go long, or go home”.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/11/20/us.iraq.ap/index.html
People seem to remember only what they wish to remember about Vietnam, painted with politcal colors. nobody here has it remotely correct.
So what is the correct answer, Joe?
Stay the course?
ya’ll should put the name of the contract of comprommise of vietnam war. like what’s the name of that contract saying the war had ended.
The Vietnam Memorial would have less than half as many names on it had Nixon not lied about his “secret plan to end the war” in 1968.
You can talk about Eisenhower and Kennedy and LBJ — there’s plenty of shame to go around. But the black-letter truth is more Americans were sacrificed in The ‘Nam during Richard M. Nixon’s presidency. He was elected to end the war and escalated it.
34 years later, George WMD Bush declared “Mission Accomplished” then escalated the war in Iraq.
Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz… all Nixonians. Wrong then. Wrong now.
Republicans. Wrong then, wrong now.
Could you please send to me the contacts of developer of your site? It looks so damn good!