BUSH, IRAQ, AND VIETNAM
President Bush, who in past stated that Iraq was “no Vietnam” or “quagmire,” recently invoked comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam.
Now, Gen Petraeus, the fourth commander of American forces in Iraq in less than five years, appeared before Congressional committees, much like Gen Westmoreland did at the height of the Vietnam War. Both utilized brightly colored, bar-graphed charts to impress congressional delegations with the metrics of "progress" in his war and that we are winning.
Petraeus, like Westmoreland before, emphasized “body counts,” “insurgents killed and/or captured,” and provinces pacified. Enthusiastically pointing to the numbers like Westmoreland did nearly 40 years ago, Petraeus’s message is: We’re winning! I have the numbers to prove it. However, someone forgot to tell the Iraqis.
Bush and Petraeus, like President Johnson and Westmoreland during Vietnam, continue to state, contrary to facts, that insurgent attacks are rapidly declining and that the insurgents are dwindling in numbers.
It’s been thirty years since America’s dramatic retreat form Vietnam. America lost the war because she failed to gain domestic and broad international support. America’s leadership was overly optimistic about their high-tech military machine, generals, and idealism only to be drawn slowly into the enemy’s conflict leaders and generals did not understand or provide adequate preparation. Now, Bush has repeated these same mistakes.
We lost over 58,000 Americans in Vietnam before reality set in with President Nixon and his generals. How many more Americans will die in Iraq before realism sets in with Bush and Petraeus?
by Christian Gatsby
