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As horror and violence spreads in
Iraq, Ted Kennedy says Iraq is now George Bush's Vietnam! By John Greeley  “Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam, and this country
needs a new president,” Senator Edward Kennedy said today in a major speech that
slammed George Bush as being deceitful and then compared him to former President
Richard Nixon.Earlier in the morning, the head of Central Command, General Abizaid, issued a public statement that he was planning for the possibility of increasing the number of U.S. troops in Iraq. The day before, seven U.S. soldiers were killed and 24 were wounded. In the General's statement one could almost hear the voice of General Westmoreland confidently predicting that additional troops would defeat the enemy insurgents. Whether Iraq has become George Bush’s Vietnam is of course debatable. On the surface, this certainly appears to be true. But what is not debatable is that the ghost of Vietnam is now reverberating throughout American society with chilling effect and is beginning to erode Bush’s earlier, easy confidence and more important, his political credibility. Vietnam stands as a kind of national, systemic failure. Korea remains a shocking, but still puzzling and poorly understood war, one called a “police action,” although more than 35 thousand Americans died in that war. Regardless of all its moral dilemmas, Vietnam came directly into our living rooms on the television screen. The repeated scenes of dead and dying came to symbolize failure of national policy. But Vietnam means more than a failed war, it means failed leadership. It means dishonest politicians leading America’s youth to sacrifice their lives in a bad cause. Calling Iraq “George Bush’s Vietnam” implies there is no reelection in the cards for George Bush, just as Lyndon Johnson bowed out under the weight of Vietnam and as Richard Nixon was forced out. For George Bush, Iraq as Vietnam would be the end of his political career. But there is more. What Senator Kennedy is suggesting is almost too horrible to contemplate. That Iraq has become the same kind of senseless meat grinder that Vietnam was. That the past horror and failure in Southeast Asia is now today’s reality in Arabia. That 610 dead Americans, 10 thousand dead Iraqis, is only the beginning of this conflagration which could easily spread to its neighboring countries, like it did in Southeast Asia. General Abizaid’s initial request for more troops is one of many signs that Senator Kennedy’s prediction of the almost incomprehensible must be faced. The insurgency in Iraq is not getting weaker, but spreading and becoming stronger. The Iraqi people are not becoming more supportive of U.S. occupation and direction, but less. What, then, should be done? Send more troops? In Vietnam, against all reason, year after year more and more men were sent off to do battle in what was essentially a civil war our leaders were too blind to see because of their fear it was sponsored by Communist Russia. Perhaps it is that same kind of ideological blindness that is the greatest similarity Iraq has to Vietnam. But this blindness is totally and completely Mr. Bush’s choice. There is no Russian Bear to blame for this one. There is no collective ignorance about just how hard it is to win a guerrilla war. There is only Bush’s obsession to reshape and reform the Arab world by using military force and at the same time punish Saddam Hussein for real or imaginary acts perpetrated against his father personally and his father’s presidency. So Senator Kennedy is right; Iraq is like Vietnam, if for no other reason than it is the senseless exercise of enormous, unequalled military power against another fourth-rate power for ideological reasons which remain unfounded in reality. If it is necessary that our youth must die for our country, at least let it be for reasons that are real if not noble. If we demand no other quality from a president, let it be that he use America’s power in the world for realistic goals and not squander it in needless, destructive ideological flights of fancy. John Greeley is a Marine Corps veteran of Vietnam, a graduate of St. John's University Law School and a contributing editor at Intervention. You can email your comments to John at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Posted Wednesday, April 6, 2004 The Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy" Groupe de communication Mulindwas "avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans l'anarchie" |
