Bush's Iraq-Vietnam comparison

[Kembal]

Kind of surprised there isn't a thread about it, but I thought it the dumbest historical analogy ever made by Bush. (and his analogies to Korea and Japan also made in the speech didn't exactly fit with history either) And of course, the invocation of Aiden Pyle of 'The Quiet American' in the speech seemed like no one who wrote the speech had actually read the book or was even remotely familiar with the story and character.

For those not knowing what I'm talking about:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/nation/5076850.html


Aug. 22, 2007, 11:47PM
Bush invokes Vietnam in Iraq defense
He claims U.S. exit could lead to a killing field, but some historians dispute analogy

By MICHAEL TACKETT
Chicago Tribune

WASHINGTON — President Bush attempted Wednesday to drape war policy in Iraq in the lessons of World War II-era Japan and Vietnam as part of a broader argument for continuing the military campaign despite fierce opposition at home and abroad.

But his remarks to a VFW convention in Kansas City, Mo., also invited stinging criticism from historians and military analysts who said the analogies evidenced scant understanding of those conflicts' true lessons.

In drawing parallels between Iraq and Vietnam, Bush said: "Then as now, people argued that the real problem was America's presence, and if we would just withdraw, the killing would end." But, he added, "The world would learn just how costly those impressions would be."

It struck some historians as odd that the president would try to use Vietnam — arguably the most divisive issue of the last 40 years — to rally the nation behind his policy in Iraq.

"If we get into a Vietnam argument, the country is divided, but if you are going to try to sell this concept that the blood is on the American people's hands because we left and were weak-kneed in Asia, that is a very tenuous and inane historical argument," said historian Douglas Brinkley of Rice University.

Brinkley, who wrote both a flattering book on John Kerry during the 2004 presidential campaign and edited the private diaries of President Ronald Reagan, said Reagan was careful to rarely talk about Vietnam because of the passions it inspired.

Bush spoke just weeks before the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, will present his assessment of the so-called troop surge in Iraq, a report that most believe will be critical in determining the level of political support that the president will be able to sustain for the war.

Several officials, including prominent Democrats such as Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., have recently returned from Iraq and reported signs of military progress. Those assessments, however, have been leavened by an ever-bleaker view of Iraq's political leadership on the part of those officials as well as Bush, who on Tuesday said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government must "do more" to achieve political stability.

In his address to veterans, the president compared the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the later use of kamikaze pilots to the terrorists who attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001. Because the United States helped to rebuild Japan, despite concerns about the cost and conflicting cultural mores, that nation became a flourishing democracy and strong ally.

But unlike the situation in Iraq with Saddam Hussein, the U.S. allowed the emperor of Japan to retain at least ceremonial power, mindful of the tradition of allegiance to the emperor in an almost homogeneous society.

Bush used Vietnam as an example of what might happen in Iraq if U.S. forces were to be withdrawn precipitously, contending that Iraq would be a killing field much like Cambodia in 1975 and that hundreds of thousands would flee for their lives like the Vietnamese boat people. His strong implication was that a lack of resolve in the U.S. contributed to that disaster.

"There are many differences between the wars we fought in the Far East and the war on terror we're fighting today," the president said. "But one important similarity is at their core, they're ideological struggles. The militarists of Japan and the communists in Korea and Vietnam were driven by a merciless vision of the proper order of humanity."

The remarks set off a discussion in Washington of both the aptness of Bush's comparisons and the political wisdom of renewing yet another discussion in this country about the consequences of the Vietnam War.

Several analysts said that the president's characterizations were at best a strained view of history. "If in fact he is drawing analogies between Pearl Harbor and Sept. 11, one wonders what in the world Iraq has to do with it," said Robert Hathaway, director of the Asia program at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. "The Iraq who we attacked in 2003 had no connection to 9/11."

Some found the Vietnam comparison even less persuasive. "This was history written by speech writers without regard to history," said military analyst Anthony Cordesman. "And I think most military historians will find it painful ... because in basic historical terms the president misstated what happened in Vietnam."

Indeed, the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam did not create a domino effect of spreading communism, as was feared at the time. Instead Vietnam went to war against two neighboring communist states, Cambodia and China. Now Vietnam has embraced some free-trade principles and is a trading partner with the U.S.

Cordesman noted that human tragedies similar to those that occurred in the aftermath of U.S. involvement in Vietnam already have taken place in Iraq.

"We are already talking about a country where the impact of our invasion has driven 2 million people out of the country, will likely drive out 2 million more, has reduced 8 million people to dire poverty, has killed 100,000 people and wounded 100,000 more. One sits sort of in awe at the lack of historical comparability."

The absolute worst part was the Cambodian killng fields analogy that he made. The Cambodian killing fields in 1975 were a direct result of us destablizing the legitimate Cambodian government while we were in South Vietnam (which enabled the Khmer Rouge to get into power) and were stopped not by us, but by the North Vietnamese after they had beaten us.

[Stanley Burrell]

Mmm, he's a dipshit -- I'm sure he can relate, especially after all that action he must've seen in the Texas Air National Guard :rolleyes:

If prez wants to pull the Vietnam card, at least consult with a cronie and try milking the soldiers' deaths card.

Fucking Bush.

[Gan]

I've actually been reading some op-eds about this speech on RCP. Here's some additional links.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20070824/news_lz1e24hoaglan.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/rosemary_righter/article2317291.ece

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/matthew_yglesias/2007/08/dont_know_much_about_history.html

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OTI4OGYyYTJlOGU0ZmNmZjJmZDllOWExNTQ4NTlkNjc

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20411171/site/newsweek/

Seems to be several historical interpretations of his speech and the links he described.

As of yet, I dont have a firm opinion if he had a foot in mouth moment or not.

[chillmonster]

"Attacked by an enemy who hates freedom?" He should stop hiring his speech writers from Liberty University. It is a bit disheartening to constantly wonder how stupid do people have to be to keep buying this shit? This president regurgitates the same thoughtless, inaccuarte generalizations and oversimplifications over and over, and people ahve to realize how transparent he really is. I've come to the conclusion that anyone who can't see through this is either a moron, or willfully ignoring reality.

[Atlanteax]

Well, I'd say that it seems that the Bush Adminstration is trying to prepare the US public to be prepared for a long-term military presence in Iraq that will last several more years... as the alternative (utter chaos in Iraq and endangered Saudi Arabia / Israel / Kuwait / etc & even higher oil prices) by pulling troops out (now) would be vastly worse than having to leave them there in a quasi-stable situation for a longer extended duration.

[Parkbandit]

Mmm, he's a dipshit -- I'm sure I can relate.

Corrected for accuracy.

[Kembal]

This is from the fourth link, the article by Peter Rodman from National Review:


Trying to debunk the president’s VFW speech, the Times has lately resuscitated the hoary claim that it was U.S. military activity that destabilized Cambodia in the first place. This claim, alas, is not supportable. What destabilized Cambodia was North Vietnam’s occupation of chunks of Cambodian territory from 1965 onwards for use as military bases from which to launch attacks on U.S. and South Vietnamese forces in South Vietnam. Cambodia’s ruler Prince Sihanouk complained bitterly to us about these North Vietnamese bases in his country and invited us to attack them (which we did from the air in 1969-70). Next came a North Vietnamese attempt to overrun the entire country in March-April 1970, to which U.S. and South Vietnamese forces responded by a limited ground incursion at the end of April.

He kind of blithely ignores the fact that we threw Prince Sinahouk out of power in 1970, or basically any of the events that happened after 1970 in Cambodia. Quoting from an op-ed that was published in the Chronicle today:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/5079389.html


His analogy of Cambodia is more off-track. The Khmer Rouge slaughter was not caused by the U.S. withdrawal from Indochina in 1973, but by the U.S. escalation of the war and intervention into Cambodia in the years prior to that time. The United States had been conducting a "secret war" kept secret from the American people but not from the Cambodians on the receiving end of B-52 strikes since the later 1960s. In April 1970, then, Richard Nixon authorized what he called an "incursion" of Cambodia on the pretext of destroying the headquarters for Vietnamese Communist military operations there, the so-called COSVN, or Central Office for South Vietnam.

A month earlier, however, in March 1970, the United States had facilitated the ouster of the Cambodian head-of-state, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, and replaced him with a weak but pliable politician named Lon Nol. At this time, the Khmer Rouge was a small splinter group of the far left, without much popular support or military power. But the U.S.-sponsored coup, and the subsequent invasion in April, proved to be a great blessing to the Khmer Rouge. With Sihanouk, who had tried to remain neutral in the larger Indochinese conflict and thus was not preventing either the Vietnamese Communists or the U.S. from operating in Cambodia, out of the way and Lon Nol, perceived as a "puppet" of Nixon, in office, there was no middle ground in Cambodia. As a result, the Khmer Rouge soared in influence and popularity by exploiting the heavy-handed American political and military intervention.

By the mid-1970s, as the U.S. air war against Cambodia continued, killing hundreds of thousands of Cambodians, the Khmer Rouge was well-positioned as the anti-American and anti-Lon Nol alternative, and so was able to swarm into Phnom Penh and establish a regime in April 1975, and then unleashing a genocidal wave of killings that lasted until the Vietnamese intervened and ousted the Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot in January 1979. Even after that ouster, however, the United States continued to work with the Khmer Rouge, supporting covert operations against the Vietnamese-supported new government in Phnom Penh and even, in the Ronald Reagan years, supporting the Khmer Rouge claim to Cambodia's seat at the United Nations.

[Gan]

I can verify that we were in Cambodia secretly. My Dad was part of the para-rescue group who setup the down pilot recovery network.

Interesting stories those were.

[Kembal]

Well, I'd say that it seems that the Bush Adminstration is trying to prepare the US public to be prepared for a long-term military presence in Iraq that will last several more years... as the alternative (utter chaos in Iraq and endangered Saudi Arabia / Israel / Kuwait / etc & even higher oil prices) by pulling troops out (now) would be vastly worse than having to leave them there in a quasi-stable situation for a longer extended duration.

Pseudo-stable is more like it.

There's an inter-Shia civil war going on in the South, with three factions vying for control of Basra. The Sunnis are somewhat working with us right now, because they want to get rid of Al-Qaida in Iraq. Of course, once that's done, they're very likely to turn the weapons that we gave them on us, because they still see us an occupying power. And the Kurds are making a regional power play, trying to flood Kirkuk before the election that decides which province the city goes to (and the losing side in that election, Sunni or Kurd, will resort to violence to try and regain the city. It's the major oil center in Northern Iraq). On top of that, the Kurds are providing support to Iranian and Turkish Kurds in their low-scale insurgency against their respective governments in their continued pursuit of making a united Kurdistan. And finally, the Iraqi national unity government is anything but, as each side is manuevering for their own sectarian advantages. We've armed the Sunnis, we've armed the Shia, and they're both fighting each other in Baghdad.

This is all happening while we are there. The elements for a regional war and/or chaos are already occurring even with our presence. What makes you think our presence will somehow stop it from occurring?

[Atlanteax]

This is all happening while we are there. The elements for a regional war and/or chaos are already occurring even with our presence. What makes you think our presence will somehow stop it from occurring?

With no U.S. troops there... Iran will go all-out in trying to secure Iraq as an Iranian proxy (failing that, direct control of the south) ... Saudi Arabia and the others will go all-out in supplying the Sunnis to ensure that Iran cannot extend its influence/threat past Iraq.

Right now, SA is indeed supplying Sunnis, but on a somewhat limited scale as they know that U.S. troops in Iraq means their border is secure against Iran. As for Iran, is supplying Shiites, but over the past few months has been scaling down as the U.S. and Iran trade good-faith gestures throughout their not-very-public negotiations over Iraq.

.

It stills looks like there is actual momentum towards a quasi-stable Iraq, but to the extend that it will be more or less 3 semi-independent regions with a weak national government (that distributes some oil wealth to the Sunnis).

[Kembal]

With no U.S. troops there... Iran will go all-out in trying to secure Iraq as an Iranian proxy (failing that, direct control of the south) ... Saudi Arabia and the others will go all-out in supplying the Sunnis to ensure that Iran cannot extend its influence/threat past Iraq.

Right now, SA is indeed supplying Sunnis, but on a somewhat limited scale as they know that U.S. troops in Iraq means their border is secure against Iran. As for Iran, is supplying Shiites, but over the past few months has been scaling down as the U.S. and Iran trade good-faith gestures throughout their not-very-public negotiations over Iraq.

I gather, by your perspective, then, that the worst thing possible would be a direct U.S. attack on Iran, as it'd just invite the regional conflagaration to happen while we were still present. I'd like you to read this column from Time:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0%2C8599%2C1654188%2C00.html


Prelude to an Attack on Iran

Saturday, Aug. 18, 2007 By ROBERT BAER

Reports that the Bush Administration will put Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on the terrorism list can be read in one of two ways: it's either more bluster or, ominously, a wind-up for a strike on Iran. Officials I talk to in Washington vote for a hit on the IRGC, maybe within the next six months. And they think that as long as we have bombers and missiles in the air, we will hit Iran's nuclear facilities. An awe and shock campaign, lite, if you will. But frankly they're guessing; after Iraq the White House trusts no one, especially the bureaucracy.

As with Saddam and his imagined WMD, the Administration's case against the IRGC is circumstantial. The U.S. military suspects but cannot prove that the IRGC is the main supplier of sophisticated improvised explosive devices to insurgents killing our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The most sophisticated version, explosive formed projectiles or shape charges, are capable of penetrating the armor of an Abrams tank, disabling the tank and killing the crew.

A former CIA explosives expert who still works in Iraq told me: "The Iranians are making them. End of story." His argument is only a state is capable of manufacturing the EFP's, which involves a complicated annealing process. Incidentally, he also is convinced the IRGC is helping Iraqi Shi'a militias sight in their mortars on the Green Zone. "The way they're dropping them in, in neat grids, tells me all I need to know that the Shi'a are getting help. And there's no doubt it's Iranian, the IRGC's," he said.

A second part of the Administration's case against the IRGC is that the IRGC has had a long, established history of killing Americans, starting with the attack on the Marines in Beirut in 1983. And that's not to mention it was the IRGC that backed Hizballah in its thirty-four day war against Israel last year. The feeling in the Administration is that we should have taken care of the IRGC a long, long time ago.

Strengthening the Administration's case for a strike on Iran, there's a belief among neo-cons that the IRGC is the one obstacle to a democratic and friendly Iran. They believe that if we were to get rid of the IRGC, the clerics would fall, and our thirty-years war with Iran over. It's another neo-con delusion, but still it informs White House thinking.

And what do we do if just the opposite happens — a strike on Iran unifies Iranians behind the regime? An Administration official told me it's not even a consideration. "IRGC IED's are a casus belli for this Administration. There will be an attack on Iran."

— Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East, is TIME.com's intelligence columnist

[Tsa`ah]

Personally, and maybe it's just me ... if I'm going to look at any historical comparisons it will be those made by people who had better than a C average in their chosen major or history. Not by a guy who scraped through collage and never served.

[Atlanteax]

Any indications/"hints" that the U.S. will attack/bomb Iran is all part of the U.S. being at the negotiation table with Iran over Iraq.

Both sides are doing the classic saber-rattling to strengthen the cards that they have available.

Most have a good understanding of what cards Iran has to play... the U.S. has the "bomb nuclear plants" and "label revolutionary guard as terrorists" (to shut off Iranian elites' international banking access, ala as was done to N.K. elites) and there's also the "arm the Sunnis and encourage cross-border fighting" (which as bad it would make Middle Eastern geopolitics for the U.S., it would be one of Iran's worse-case scenarios).

[Warriorbird]

Because the Sunnis LOVE us right about now.

[Gan]

The enemy of my enemy is my friend...

[Atlanteax]

Because the Sunnis LOVE us right about now.

Yes, no love lost... but we can leave and avoid the worst of the fighting.

If a cross-border situation develops... the U.S. military will just opt to take out Iranian hardware (Tanks, Airplanes, Artillery, etc) and leave the guerilla fighting to the Sunnis... with the U.S. troops predominantly remaining in Kuwait and on the Iraq side of the border with Saudi Arabia.

[Warriorbird]

I think your idea represents a massive denial of reality...but then again, neither of us are experts.

[Parkbandit]

Personally, and maybe it's just me ... if I'm going to look at any historical comparisons it will be those made by people who had better than a C average in their chosen major or history. Not by a guy who scraped through collage and never served.


:shrug:

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e6/belike53/Clinton.jpg

[TheEschaton]

Ha. Clinton was a Rhodes scholar. They don't just hand those out, yanno, to any schmuck who wants one. The Clintons are illustrative of true meritocracy, Dubya of silver spoon fed legacy.

[Drew]

Unfortunately, my friend E, the best leaders often aren't that intelligent. Lots of cunning ones, lots of smart ones, learned ones? Not many good ones.

[Gan]

Confidential college transcripts and test scores obtained by the Washington Post reveal that neither presidential candidate, George W. Bush nor Al Gore, were shining students during their college days at Yale and Harvard, respectively. Although each earned respectable scores on the SAT college admissions test (a total of 1355 of 1600 for Gore and 1206 for Bush), neither did that well in their college courses. Both earned a mix of B and C grades. Gore's lowest grade of D came in a natural sciences course, while his top grades were an A in French and English, an A in Visual and Environmental Studies, and an A- in Social Relations. Bush's lowest marks were a 70 (of 100) in Sociology and a 71 in Economics, while his highest scores were High Passes in History and Japanese.

In 2005, the Boston Globe obtained comparable information on John Kerry's undergraduate record at Yale. It shows that Kerry had a cumulate grade average of 76 over

four years in school. His freshman year average was 71 and his senior year average was 81.

http://www.insidepolitics.org/heard/heard32300.html

[Alfster]

The enemy of my enemy is my friend...

That idea hasn't really worked well for us in the past, lolzersk8

[Gan]

That idea hasn't really worked well for us in the past, lolzersk8

Its actually worked better against us.

[TheEschaton]

Uh, Drew, I beg to differ. All the best leaders have been intelligent.

Now, just cause you think Dubya and Reagan are great leaders because they were too stupid to be able to change their minds when things changed, doesn't mean they were great leaders.

And the whole "enemy of my enemy is my friend" thing is so laughable it should be a show on Comedy Central. BOTH the current wars we're fighting are/were against figureheads we either trained, armed, or otherwise supported, and then abandoned, pissing them off endlessly.

-TheE-

[grapedog]

For a guy who skipped out on the Texas Air National Guard, he's got a lot of balls talking about Vietnam when he was in his daddies side pocket the whole time. Just another example of why Bush is a fucking douchebag.

[Gan]

And the whole "enemy of my enemy is my friend" thing is so laughable it should be a show on Comedy Central. BOTH the current wars we're fighting are/were against figureheads we either trained, armed, or otherwise supported, and then abandoned, pissing them off endlessly.

-TheE-

^^^= Post 24

See Post 23.

[TheEschaton]

Examples? You mean Russia's advances amongst Middle East countries in the 80s?

[Gan]

Examples? You mean Russia's advances amongst Middle East countries in the 80s?

http://forum.gsplayers.com/showpost.php?p=589556&postcount=28

Two groups who were previous enemies and yet came together when the US became the greater enemy.

There's more, but this is the most relevant example I can point to regarding the current topic.

[Tsa`ah]

http://www.insidepolitics.org/heard/heard32300.html

Way to compare and idiot to an idiot to yet another idiot.

Next we can focus on the Bush Sr campaign of 92, mainly on his choice in running mate and his biggest choice of dirt against his opponent ... draft dodging.

[Gan]

Way to compare and idiot to an idiot to yet another idiot.

Next we can focus on the Bush Sr campaign of 92, mainly on his choice in running mate and his biggest choice of dirt against his opponent ... draft dodging.


The goal of the link was not in any defense to Bush. He was a mediocre student at best. It simply deserved to be demonstrated what the actual performance was for Bush's college career instead of the conjecture that seems to be flying around.

[Parkbandit]

For a guy who skipped out on the Texas Air National Guard, he's got a lot of balls talking about Vietnam when he was in his daddies side pocket the whole time. Just another example of why Bush is a fucking douchebag.

And your post is just another example of how you are an ignorant flaming liberal.

What was your point again?

[TheEschaton]

How is grapedog's post factually incorrect? He got into the Texas Air National Guard ahead of hundreds on the waitlist.

-TheE-

[Sean of the Thread]

How is grapedog's post factually incorrect? He got into the Texas Air National Guard ahead of hundreds on the waitlist.

-TheE-

It's called networking.

[Tsa`ah]

It's called nepotism.

Corrected.

[Parkbandit]

How is grapedog's post factually incorrect? He got into the Texas Air National Guard ahead of hundreds on the waitlist.

-TheE-

And because of this, he is automatically a fucking douchbag?

But hey, you are a flaming ignorant liberal already.. so I'm wasting my time here.

Personally, I can't wait to see Hillary in the White House..

[TheEschaton]

I think in conjunction with his hawkish views, his A) nepotism to get into a National Guard Unit ahead of hundreds of others, and B) his inability to even complete that obligation, he is rather douche baggy, yes.

-TheE-

[Mosquito]

WWIII anyone? OH GOSH I CANT WAIT@!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Parkbandit]

WWIII anyone? OH GOSH I CANT WAIT@!!!!!!!!!!!!


Seriously, after 3 lousy posts I had you pegged. How are you liking your anonymity?

Oh, and let me save you a couple replies:


Uh, ok. Can someone explain this bizzare off-topic comment?


Weird board.

Random. Too many inside jokes to understand. I guess that comes with a brazillion posts.

[Sean of the Thread]

Backlash isn't that bright. Give him a chance.