Letters to the Editor
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Ironic, isn't it?
"The thing about the Vietnam War that troubles me as I look back was it was a political war. We had politicians making military decisions, and it is lessons that any president must learn, and that is to set the goal and the objective and allow the military to come up with the plans to achieve that objective. And those are essential lessons to be learned from the Vietnam War."--GWB
We watched Rumsfield, Cheney, Bush utterly and completely mismanage post-war planning. And then there's been the hugely unsuccessful "stay the course" strategy. Obviously the lessons of Vietnam weren't learned--and God knows that senior military leadership (Franks, and others) should have known better.
If it wasn't all so tragic, it would be a comedy.
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Agony
The horror of Dubya's "stabbed-in-the-back" war myth speech is that enough Republican politicians on the hill will buy it, which will force either a budget showdown with Democrats, or another opportunity for the Democrats to give Dubya exactly what he wants; more funding for his already lost war (which is the same thing as ass raping America).
So, either the military suffers because Democrats can't pull the Republicans' heads out of their asses, or the military suffers because the Democrats have no spine. Either way the Democrats get blamed for what Dubya wont do, cutting our losses and admitting defeat.
The reality of the situation is; how much are we willing to lose with this bad poker hand that Dubya has dealt for our entire nation?
We can fold now, or keep raising till there are no more chips left, but all card are face up, and we are going to lose no matter what.
Denying that the war in Iraq is a lost cause, isn't going to chance the fact that it is a lost cause.
I say cut the funding, because if I am going to get ass raped no matter what I do, I don't want to pay for the horrifying experience and then get arrested for soliciting prostitution afterwards.
Get that America, Dubya and his Neo-cons are asking for more money to ass rape you. Are we not tired of the first ass raping "the surge" gave us?
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War myth
Uncultured and unlettered, President Bush should not be trying to interpret history. We know now that President Nixon knew in 1969 that the Vietnam war was unwinnable. It's said war is too important to be left to the Generals. Knowing the military has taken the war as far as it could, President Bush should go to Iraq, meet with the various factions of Freedom Fighters and try to hammer out cease fire proposals, peace projections or whatever. He should take Secretary Rice; being unfamiliar with diplomacy they would need to take some classes and the whole thing may take months. But we should be able to manage without them; after all winding up this war is important.
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Yes, an old myth indeed
For Hitler, it was the Jews and the Bolsheviks who stabbed Germany in the back.
And who doesn't want to annhiliate back-stabbing traitors? Just ask Ted Nugent, who is one of the few right-wingers willing to say what the rest of them are - feeling (I almost said 'thinking').
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hah
...all I can say, as other posters elsewhere on Salon have said more than once: Bush shows a grotesque tin ear when he invokes Vietnam. He pulled every string he could pull to stay out of that war. Does he REALLY want to be talking about it now? I think even the dankest corners of the right-wing know that Bush was a total chickenhawk, allowed to avoid the war because of his family connections. How in hell do they ever reconcile that to this cartoon version of patriotism?
And then, he gets cause and effect completely wrong. As wrong as wrong can be. Putz.
Makes me want to puke.
And, beware of the "stab in the back" myth. It has a long, deadly history. It's what the Nazis used to rally their Base long ago. It's a canard that never goes out of fashion, and it must be fought tooth and nail. We *cannot* let the right-wing get away with that bullshit a second time. We just cannot.
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Radio Ads Too
Chicago radio suddenly is running preposterous ads about the unacceptable impossibility of defeat in Iraq. This message still has power among Americans.
A Democratic candidate must say "unwinnable," and explain, rather than just implying, and hoping for support from everybody. Somebody must bring American "patriots" such as my dad to understand how W. Bush and his guys have tried to dupe them.
Then, the patriots' outrage will bring about a good result. Otherwise, it's just Round Three or Round Million in the same-old regurgitated-cliche shout-down.
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waning? really? I hope so, but....
I think Gary and many of us are far, far too complacent about the impact this hoary and horrible "myth" can have still. As long as the Democrats remain unable or unwilling to create a coherent narrative that can really challenge this travesty of history and patriotism, the myth can indeed affect a hell of a lot of citizens who just plain hate to think we might have let our bravest and best die for nothing.
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what utter crap
But the "stab in the back" myth never died: It stayed alive in the resentment-filled caverns of the American right
Well then you must count North Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap as a member of the "American right," because he explicitly credits the anti-war movement in the U.S. for his ultimate victory. In a June 24, 1990, interview with Stanley Karnow in the NY Times, Giap said, "We were not strong enough to drive out a half million troops, but that was not our aim. Our intention was to break the will of the American Government to continue the war."
And in a later meeting with military historian (and retired colonel) Harry Summers, Giap responded, "True, but irrelevant" when Summers said, "You know you never defeated us on the battlefield." Giap said he was counting on Americans losing their will to fight, something he attributed to, among others, the anti-war movement.
Read also the memoirs of Colonel Bui Tin Following Ho Chi Minh : The Memoirs of a North Vietnamese Colonel, (University of Hawaii Press, 1995) p. 63, where he also credits the American anti-war movement for North Vietnam's ultimate success.
It is Kamiya and Salon perpetrating myths here, counting on the historical ignorance of the loony left and this faction's willingness to believe anything that confirms its own prejudices.