Fighting the Vietnam War in Iraq

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Well into August, however, 'Operation Forward Together' had no more secured Baghdad than the previous mission -- dubbed 'Operation Lightning' -- did in 2005 where Iraqi militias and U.S. troops waged a campaign of repression against the resisting Sunni populations. The present mission is more of the same, with U.S. forces knocking down doors, kidnapping whoever they choose and holding them indefinitely in one their prisons without charges, basically terrorizing the residents into submission as they paint a target on the military occupied towns.

Apparently Bush thinks he has time on his side in Iraq. The "lesson" Bush said in November on his trip to Vietnam -- when he compared the Vietnam War to his own disaster in Iraq -- was that the Vietnam war lasted a long time, so, the Iraq war should, as well.

"I think one thing -- yes, I mean, one lesson is, is that we tend to want there to be instant success in the world, and the task in Iraq is going to take a while," Bush said to reporters. He made no mention at all of what effect waiting would have on the killing and maiming of our soldiers who are being made to wait until he comes up with a plan to get them out. But, he said he wanted victory. So, our soldiers continue to bust down doors in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq, fighting and dying on one side of a multi-fronted civil war as Bush looks for some sort of "win" in the "ideological struggle" he's chosen to wage on the backs of the Iraqis.

It has been reported that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed since Bush's initial invasion. Over 1.5 million refugees have reportedly fled into the countries neighboring Iraq, particularly Syria, Jordan and Iran. That "price paid by Iraqis" is one which Bush bears direct responsibility. Moreover, the negative consequences of Bush's invasion and occupation are accelerating right along with his increase of U.S. forces. If there is to be a catastrophe which results from our withdrawal as Bush claims, its effect will have to multiply many times over to rival the death and destruction Iraqis and their defenders have reckoning with for years since the invasion. "Bring them on," I presume, is still the rallying cry from the White House, inviting attacks on our soldiers who've become targets for the many factions of resistance to Bush's military prop of the Iraqi regime.

Americans who remember Gerald Ford's speech heralding the end of the war will be struck by the revisionist view Bush is promoting when he claims our withdrawal from Vietnam was something we should regret because of Nixon's failure to 'win' anything out of the slaughter and mayhem.

"America can regain the sense of pride that existed before Vietnam," Ford said in his speech at Tulane University But it cannot be achieved by refighting a war that is finished as far as America is concerned. As I see it, the time has come to look forward to an agenda for the future, to unify, to bind up the Nation's wounds, and to restore its health and its optimistic self-confidence," he said.

Bush would reopen those wounds, just to further his political agenda to escape a verdict of defeat for his failed Iraq misadventure. His message to Americans is one of scorn for their weariness of war, and ridicule for their demand that he stop. Pulling out now would be an appeasement, he will say, of the 9-11 'terrorists' he let escape into the mountains of Afghanistan five years ago. Any threat to the U.S. in Iraq, however, represents resistance to his oppressive occupation more than any "evil" that Bush claims he's defending against.

If, somehow, there is to be any consolidation of power in Iraq by the 9-11 attackers or their supporters after our troops withdraw, it will not go unnoticed that al-Qaeda didn't exist at all in Iraq before Bush inflamed the region and invited 'terrorists' to "fight us there." Any gains which are made by 'extremists' in the Mideast (other than by our own 'extreme' rule in the U.S.), will be attributed to Bush's unnecessary destabilization -- undertaken in Iraq by choice; not necessity. And the world wouldn't end if Iraqis were still fighting among themselves if we leave. Bush has admitted that a continuation of attacks was inevitable, if not completely unavoidable. And, even Gerald Ford didn't feel that losing Indochina to 'communists' was the end of the world:

"We, of course, are saddened indeed by the events in Indochina, he said as he announced our withdrawal from Vietnam," "But these events, tragic as they are, portend neither the end of the world nor of America's leadership in the world," he said.

"Let me put it this way, if I might," Ford said, "Some tend to feel that if we do not succeed in everything everywhere, then we have succeeded in nothing anywhere. I reject categorically such polarized thinking. We can and we should help others to help themselves. But the fate of responsible men and women everywhere, in the final decision, rests in their own hands, not in ours," President Ford told Americans.

That same sentiment of reduced expectations for an end to the violence they sparked with their invasion and overthrow has been expressed repeatedly by Bush and his cabal. As Bush admitted when he sold the country his "surge," "Even if our new strategy works exactly as planned, deadly acts of violence will continue – and we must expect more Iraqi and American casualties," he said.

Notice how much more concerned Bush is with our perception of his occupation. He wants to get us on board in his paranoid grab for power with a campaign of propagandized fear. Their 'war' is only authorized by Congress to pursue the 'perpetrators of 9-11", not an open ended license to conquer the world and hijack our hard earned sacrifices to generations of militarism. The only way they can perpetuate that is to lie. The realities of these military interventions don't support Bush's constant boasting about defending democracy, spreading freedom, or defeating terror. All they are left with after years of oppression in Iraq and Afghanistan is more violence and more 'enemies' bent on our destruction.

The people of Iraq will ultimately be responsible for their own affairs. That will happen just as soon as the U.S. military takes their jackboots off of their throats. Even Bush has said in his more defensive moments that, "a military solution alone will not stop violence." Yet, he has contradicted that sentiment at every opportunity. There really isn't any component of Bush's Iraq strategy which hasn't expected our military forces, at every turn, to cow the Iraqis into a forced acceptance of his puppet authority's propped-up rule.

President Ford spoke about that expectation that our military can be relied on as the only representation of our nation's strength in his announcement of the end of the Vietnam folly as he quoted a speech Abraham Lincoln had given, ironically, on September 11, 1858.

I would like to talk about another kind of strength, the true source of American power that transcends all of the deterrent powers for peace of our Armed Forces," Ford said. "I am speaking here of our belief in ourselves and our belief in our Nation."

Abraham Lincoln asked, in his own words, and I quote, "What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence?" And he answered, "It is not our frowning battlements or bristling seacoasts, our Army or our Navy. Our defense is in the spirit which prized liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands everywhere," Ford told Americans in his address.

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Ron Fullwood, is an activist from Columbia, Md. and the author of the book 'Power of Mischief' : Military Industry Executives are Making Bush Policy and the Country is Paying the Price

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