Letters to the Editor
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In the Twilight Zone
I served in the field in Vietnam in 1968 and 1969. I visited Saigon and small Vietnamese towns frequently. Nothing I saw there, even days after the Tet Offensive, compares with the terrible state of affairs in Baghdad as described by Dean Schell. Further reporting is almost unnecessary. His article says it clearly enough: this illegal war is lost. Our forces barely control the ground they stand on. Let us hope that the Iraqis will eventually forgive us our trespass.
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Great Reporting
A great two part report, with some haunting descriptions of current conditions in Iraq.
How many years will take for the Iraqi people to forgive us?
How many years will it take us to forgive Bush?
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Slouching Toward Tehran?
Orville Schell has penned a great piece of journalism. The stark contrast between the red and green zones showed how delusional President Bush and his administration really are about the prospect for a democratic Iraq emerging from all this chaos and anarchy. What was really uncanny is how the green zone reminded me of my year in Vietnam stationed at Cam Ranh Bay. It was one of many American bases along the coast of Vietnam that became a Potemkin village of the American world we had left behind and recreated in Vietnam. Of course, this static, defensive base filled with American soldiers showed how bankrupt the official party line emanating from the LBJ administration really was about winning the war in the jungles across the river. And again we have Republican neocons as delusional as the New Frontiersmen, who stayed on in the LBJ administration to prosecute another unwinnable war.
Do we ever learn from our past mistakes? How could we have blundered into Iraq in the same way that we did in Vietnam? What is it about the American character that allows such blunders to occur again and again? I could say that the neocons and the New Frontiersmen are both victims of their collective hubris. But even that explanation fails to grasp the magnitude of this current foreign policy debacle. I fear that before this tragic chapter in the history of our nation pays out, we will continue to be surprised and shocked having opened this Pandora's Box in the Middle East. And now President Bush has clearly stated in his manufactured and fradulent nuclear showdown at high noon with Iran that the military doctrine of pre-emptive strike is still a valid rationale. How could he possibly believe this doctrine, given how horribly it has backfired in Iraq? He makes LBJ look like a rank amateur in the art of catastrophe. It make still take several years, but in the same manner that the Vietnam War destablized Cambodia and brought about the Khmer Rouge's genocide against its own citizens, I feel that the war in Iraq will eventually lead to a similiar historical event on the magnitude of Cambodia. Perhaps, it's the fact that I'm a Vietnam vet that I take such a dim view of this patriotism thing having seen where it leads. But when the claims of WMD's in Iraq and Saddam's link to the 9/11 terrorist attacks were being debated based upon faulty intelligence, I said to myself, Oh, no, this reminds of the Gulf of Tonkin incident that LBJ mainpulated to ramrod a carte blanche war resolution through Congress. As Yogi Berra said, it's deja vu all over again.
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"Madness" Just Doesn't Cut It
I believe we have slipped the boundaries of madness into pure psychosis. Our military stumbles blindly on, like a zombie, tearing people apart, blood dripping from its extremities and gaping maw. And there seems to be no end to it. Like a firestorm, the violence in Iraq feeds on itself, becomes its own force of logic.
And no one can blaim those of us on the left who tried to stop this from coming to pass. There were millions on the street all across the world in the months leading up to the war. Noam Chomsky, among others, has correctly stated that this was the first time in recorded history that so many rallied publicly against at war before its beginning. But then few countries in human history had a leader like George W. Bush, a man who took the malodorous corporate boardroom concept of "my way or the highway" into the highest offices of American political power. He did not listen and will not listen. He is building his own gutter in Hell, but in the meantime we must live in his wake.
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The war is lost
Bring 'em home and impeach the POTUS.
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Operating in the dark
Much like our administration has an active desire not to know or acknowledge that which does not fit into idealogy. It would appear that it's symbolism made real in Iraq.
This situation is really in no ones best interest...except perhaps military contractors.
I read an article on cnn at http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/03/17/iraq.anniversary/index.html
It smelled a bit too much like PR to me. I'd like to know the authors thoughts.
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Things get worse from here
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution would then become the Straights of Hormuz Resolution. America would set up bases in the UAE, (what did you think the port deal was about?) to protect vital strategic interests. Democrats will rush to join the President, Outhawking the Hawks on Iran. (Democrats were never against the Iraq War, Senator Kerry simply thought he could conduct the war better than the Republicans).
Under the history repeats itself as farce scenario, a brief air and naval bombardment would ensue, and the UN would sanction Iran, and create a no-fly zone over most of the country. (The younger Bush is older and wiser now, and he will practise some of the moderation his father used in Gulf War 1.) U.S. warplanes enforce the zone, and President Jeb (Or maybe Jenna) Bush will liberate Tehran, at some future date, and the Iranian people will throw roses at our feet. You didn't think the Iraq War was really a failure did you?
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Same Old Song - Different Verse
Like REMIXEDDOG, I too spent a year at Camn Rahn Bay in Vietnam, and agree that the parallels to the Green Zone are striking. At that time I was very conservative (the default mode for career military personnel), believed in the plausibility of the Domino Theory, the essential purity of America's objectives and methods and the utter nefariousness of war protesters. As revelations trickled out in the years after THAT benighted episode in our history, I had to accept the fact that I and America had been duped. I was in my early 30's in the Vietnam Era and now am in my 60's, hopefully a bit wiser if sadder. As the pressure to invade Iraq ramped up, I was not so naive as earlier in my life and could clearly see that the rationale was the same old song, different verse. It's a shame that most of us must be in the evening of our lives before we have accumulated enough wisdom to question the cynical appeal to patriotism that politicians have always used to seduce citizens into ill-advised ventures. The debacle in Iraq, corruption in Washington, the hollowing out of our industrial base, astronomical budget and trade deficits, glaring income disparity, etc. cause me to fear for my wonderful country. This cynical administration I am sure will be recorded as the nadir of the American Experience - assuming we survive it.