Bush Cites Vietnam Comparison

**CHUQ** · Agitator Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts votes: 3

OOPS! There is a comparison to be made. But I thought it was nothing like Vietnam? First of all Bambi, the US was never in Cambodia. (that is the story and we stick to it) So the Khmer Rouge would have done their crap even if we were still there. And the Domino Theory proved to be bullsh*t! shall I go on?

President George Bush sought to buy more time for his Iraq "surge" strategy yesterday by making a risky comparison for the first time with the bloodshed and chaos that followed the US pullout from Vietnam.

Making it clear he will resist congressional pressure next month for an early withdrawal, he signalled that US troops, whom he hailed as the "greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known", will be in Iraq as long as he is president. He also said the consequences of leaving "without getting the job done would be devastating", and "the enemy would follow us home".

LINK

**CHUQ** · Agitator Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts votes: 3

I found a piece that questions Bush on the Vietnam thing.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 22 — The American withdrawal from Vietnam is widely remembered as an ignominious end to a misguided war — but one with few negative repercussions for the United States and its allies.

By the time these Americans were lifted off a roof in Saigon in 1975 , few American combat forces were left in Vietnam.

Now, in urging Americans to stay the course in Iraq, President Bush is challenging that historical memory.

In reminding Americans that the pullout in 1975 was followed by years of bloody upheaval in Southeast Asia, Mr. Bush argued in a speech on Wednesday that Vietnam’s lessons provide a reason for persevering in Iraq, rather than for leaving any time soon. Mr. Bush in essence accused his war critics of amnesia over the exodus of Vietnamese “boat people” refugees and the mass killings in Cambodia that upended the lives of millions of people.

SOURCE

**CHUQ** · Agitator Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts votes: 3

Here is the text of the speech, in case you want to read the entire thing and not take my word for it.

SOURCE

**CHUQ** · Agitator Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts votes: 3

The Dems attack, but did you expect them to be silent?

Mr Bush called for more time to complete the task in Iraq

Leading members of the US Democratic Party have criticised President George W Bush's speech in which he defended his Iraq policy.

Mr Bush said a military retreat could trigger the kind of upheaval seen after US forces left Vietnam.

The leader of the Senate, Harry Reid, dismissed the comparison and said the decision to invade Iraq was one of the worst blunders in US history.

STORY

**Tumbleweed** · Admin Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts votes: 4

Bush finally got to go to Viet Nam, so now he's a expert. Laughing

Both wars were lost because they were political blunders. He just won't admit his defeat.

**Tumbleweed** · Admin Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts votes: 4

Here is a different perspective from a Nam vet.

Quote:

CNN.com: President Bush suggested that a troop withdrawal from Iraq would lead to a period of violence and killing similar to the end of the Vietnam War. Do you think that comparison is valid?

Christman: A precipitous withdrawal almost certainly will lead to vastly increased bloodletting. The question, however, is the context in which that withdrawal occurs. If it takes place following a political accommodation amongst Iraqi factions and with strengthened Iraqi institutions -- Defense and Interior ministries most importantly -- the likelihood of increased carnage is greatly minimized. The "surge" is useful only if the Iraqis use the time we have given them to reach that accommodation.

On Vietnam, the similarities are greatly overplayed. Iraq is, frankly, far more complex than Vietnam, given the internal religious and political dynamics, and externally, the region has far greater strategic significance for the U.S. than Vietnam and Southeast Asia ever did for the U.S. in the 1960s.

What does unite the Vietnam and Iraq experiences, however, is the importance of reaching a political solution as the "end game." We were successful militarily in Vietnam, and we are experiencing clear military success now in Iraq, but this latter success will be irrelevant unless it is framed by a political settlement that involves all Iraqi factions.

Source

**CHUQ** · Agitator Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts votes: 3

The following is the text of the Iraq Situation as reported by the NIE. It is not as good as Bush would want and points to places where probs will moisyt likely pop up.

LINK

**CHUQ** · Agitator Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts votes: 3

Yet another OOPS! The Vietnamese have jumped on the bandwagon. I think his mouth has pissed off the people.

HANOI, Vietnam - President Bush touched a nerve among Vietnamese when he invoked the Vietnam War in a speech warning that death and chaos will envelop Iraq if U.S. troops leave too quickly.

People in Vietnam, where opposition to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq is strong, said Thursday that Bush drew the wrong conclusions from the long, bloody Southeast Asian conflict.

"Doesn't he realize that if the U.S. had stayed in Vietnam longer, they would have killed more people?" said Vu Huy Trieu of Hanoi, a veteran of the communist forces that fought American troops in Vietnam. "Nobody regrets that the Vietnam War wasn't prolonged except Bush."

STORY

**Tumbleweed** · Admin Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts votes: 4

No surprise Bush has managed to get someone else mad at him. He usually makes stupid comments that give him foot in mouth syndrome. Rolling Eyes

**CHUQ** · Agitator Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts votes: 3

Everything he said about Vietnam was wrong! He really needs to try reading a couple of books and some past articles, if he wants to make some sweeping statement, at least try to be accurate, Bambi.

**CHUQ** · Agitator Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts votes: 3

I like this article. Period>

President George W. Bush’s speech this week suggesting that the US should exorcise the ghosts of Vietnam by staying the course in Iraq was partly aimed at winning over wavering Republican lawmakers.

It marked the opening salvo in what could be the stormiest phase of the Iraq war debate; next month Congress is likely to consider a deadline for withdrawal after it hears a progress report on Mr Bush’s 30,000-troop surge.

Few believe the Democratic majority can muster the two-thirds margin needed to override Mr Bush’s veto on laws passed by Congress, which he has used twice before this year to kill less stringent resolutions.

LINK

**CHUQ** · Agitator Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts votes: 3

Another story about Hanoi's response to Bambi's comparioson

Hanoi is dismayed by President George W. Bush’s invocation of the ignominious US withdrawal from Vietnam to explain the need to maintain US forces in Iraq.

Mr Bush suggested that Washington’s withdrawal from Vietnam precipitated a bloodbath in south-east Asia – including the Cambodian Khmer Rouge genocide – an assertion many Vietnamese see as a gross oversimplification of the region’s complex and tragic history, and Washington’s own role in it.

“It is very ill-considered and, frankly, cavalier to make use of Vietnam in such a way to extricate himself from the Iraq debate,” said Ton Nu Thi Ninh, former deputy chair of the foreign relations committee of Vietnam’s National Assembly. “Opening this up again can only rekindle resentment, antagonisms that have been put on the shelf for the sake of looking into the future.”

STORY

**CHUQ** · Agitator Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts votes: 3

Pretty good piece about Bambi and Vietnam thing.

George Bush's invocation of the "killing fields" in Cambodia to try to bolster his failing argument for an indefinite continuation of the Iraq occupation was a reference to the extreme right's decades-old rant that U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam caused the bloodbath in Pol Pot's Cambodia.

That argument makes a hash of the history of the Vietnam era, but maybe it's a good thing that he has brought it up now. The media and the blogosphere need to go back over how the killing fields actually came about. The fact is, more than three decades after the end of the U.S. military involvement in Indochina, there has still not been a real debate about the relationship between U.S. policy in Vietnam and the human consequences for Cambodia.

LINK

**Tumbleweed** · Admin Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts votes: 4

Quote:

“It is very ill-considered and, frankly, cavalier to make use of Vietnam in such a way to extricate himself from the Iraq debate,”

Bush is just using VN as a talking point to make a case for staying in Iraq, when it seems VN was better off after we left.

**CHUQ** · Agitator Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts votes: 3

In the beginning there was a huge personel purge in Vietnam, but once they pulled their heads out of their asses they fit really well in the grand scheme of things. Bush and the admin have NO concept of history, they make it up as they go.