Letters to the Editor
cabdriver
Published Letters: 405 Editor's Choice: 8
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@Bryan
[Read the article: What John McCain didn't learn in Vietnam]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...The very comparisons and distinctions that "Cabdriver" points to -- e.g., in Vietnam, unlike Iraq, we at least did have an incumbent, existing, friendly, indigenous government that invited us in and was fighting a war against a fairly well-defined common enemy -- dramatically illustrate how much LESS justified the Iraq invasion was compared to America's Vietnam intervention...
...Cabdriver's" letter, though he doesn't seem to grasp it, shows that, EVEN IF McCain were somehow right about the Vietnam intervention being justified, that would UTTERLY FAIL to justify the FAR MORE WRONGHEADED Iraq invasion.
Actually, that was one of my major intended points. If my comments didn't make that sufficiently clear, I apologize.
Why should Iraq War critics be disarmed from using such very effective and cogent comparisons to the Vietnam War?
My objection is not so much to the use of Vietnam as an example per se- it's the way that I've observed it employed most often: as a directly analogous case to Iraq. It is not: as you've grasped, the Iraq war is "far more wrongheaded."
But the topic of the Vietnam war is so freighted- and so often devolves into Monday-morning quarterbacking and partisan accusations over which American political faction might have held the more justified position 35 years ago, with all that connotes- that revisiting the past has a tendency to drown out the concerns of the present. Given that tendency, any historical allusion to "Vietnam", or even a mention of the word, has a way of producing more heat than light.
Consider the misinterpretations my first comment was subjected to, simply for allowing that the historical role of the USA in South Vietnam was somewhat less malign than that of swinging the wrecking ball on a nation that was functionally disarmed and at peace, the way Bush did to Iraq in 2003.
My opinion remains that being the first to allude to "the Vietnam war" in the course of a debate over Iraq is a recipe for confusion. But in this case, the topic was already on the table.
If someone on the pro-Iraq war/occupation side- like John McCain- does so, we agree on the best way to respond: by pointing out exactly how much more wrongheaded and unjustifiable it is to intervene in a nation that 1) hasn't officially requested US intervention; 2) is not in a state of armed conflict; and 3)lacks the capability to even threaten its neighbors with military belligerency, much less the USA. (The "WMD" allegations never got anywhere with me- considering the immense difficulty of storage, transport, smuggling, and delivery/effective use as offensive weapons of the specific WMD stocks that Saddam was- inaccurately- alleged to be hoarding, it's much more practical for a terrorist group to attempt to obtain supplies with similar characteristics and power within the borders of the USA. More than that, I will not elaborate...)
By contrast, I think that Afghanistan's harboring of Al Qaeda training camps did fufill the conditions for US military intervention- although that was botched, too. I'm much more skeptical of any supposed mission of "nation-building" at the point of our rifles, over there. I'd like to see the world go back to celebrating the progress and modernity of the Information Age, until the anti-modern societies find they can't stand it any more, loosen up and join the party. Doing battle to "sivilize" a "failed state" is sort of like what's said of pig wrestling: you both get dirty, and the pig likes it. I prefer the "island hopping strategy": unless they're specifically acting like a threat to the outside world, let them stew in their own juices. Their kids will figure it out.
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@HoneyBeeMarie
[Read the article: The unbearable whiteness of being]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So...do ya think yer improvin' things any?