[Peace-discuss] Bush: Iraq=Vietnam

[C. G. Estabrook]

The speech is a tissue of lies, of course, but it's proverbial that "A 
lie travels round the world while truth is putting her boots on."

We probably should be doing a little truth-shoeing.  When the Champaign 
City Council/Town Meeting considered our withdrawal referendum, the 
mayor observed then that a withdraw from Iraq would produce a "bloodbath 
like the withdrawal from Vietnam."  We pointed out that the bloodbath in 
Vietnam was the war of more than a decade in which we killed millions of 
people, but that makes little difference over against what "everybody 
knows."

The only bloodbath in SE Asia after the Vietnam War was in Cambodia, a 
country we hadn't occupied.  The US caused it by destroying the society 
from the air -- and the Vietnamese ended it by invading Cambodia and 
displacing the Khmer Rouge.

Incidentally, it's not quite right to say (as the article below does) 
that "We got into Vietnam with a lie about the Gulf of Tonkin incident 
and we got into Iraq with a lie about WMD."  US military involvement in 
Vietnam predates the Gulf of Tonkin incident (1964): the US invasion of 
the country took place two years earlier, because the people of South 
Vietnam had the temerity to reject the government we'd picked out for 
them. And though we are probably responsible for killing more than a 
million Iraqis since the March 2003 invasion, we're also responsible for 
killing probably even more (notably by sanctions and the Gulf War) well 
before that date.  --CGE


Jan & Durl Kruse wrote:
> http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3512349&page=1
> 
> The President's Surprising Rationale for the Iraq War: Vietnam
> President Bush Draws Parallel Between Vietnam and Iraq to Justify 
> Continued Fighting
> 
> 
> */Final section of this story:/*
> But for many listeners -- some of them veterans of the Vietnam War -- 
> the president's comparison was not only inaccurate, it was distasteful.
> 
> "I think it's really regrettable to me that the president really has 
> learned nothing from Vietnam," said Bernie Reilly, a West Point 
> graduate, Vietnam vet and father of a son who has served tours in Iraq 
> and Afghanistan.
> 
> "It is perfectly right to compare Iraq with Vietnam," said Barry Romo of 
> Vietnam Veterans Against the War. "We got into Vietnam with a lie about 
> the Gulf of Tonkin incident and we got into Iraq with a lie about WMD."
> 
> 
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