George Bush went to Vietnam. He was asked how that war compared to this war and his answer was, "We'll succeed unless we quit."
It is time to get serious about the history of the war in Vietnam. The failure to do so is part of what permits idiocies like this war.
The great myth, and it's clearly the myth that George Bush believes, is that the US lost the war in Vietnam because liberals, Hollywood actresses, hippies and CBS News subverted our will to fight.
That's not true.
We lost the war in Vietnam because we were fighting for something we could not achieve.
We were fighting to convince the Vietnamese to accept a variety of Western backed dictators, crooks, and cowboy colonels as their leaders. We were opposed by an idealistic, disciplined, organized and relative uncorrupt movement with a charismatic leader.
That was our goal in the conflict. It's not the reason we went to war.
We went to war because of a mythology. It was a mythology very like the one that George Bush has created as the context for the War in Iraq.
Back then, we saw the world in bi-polar terms. The Free World vs. Communism.
Because the world was bi-polar we had to count anyone who was anti-Communist as good and support them. So dictators and juntas and mini-fascists all over the globe got to be counted as members of the Free World.
It also meant that all Communists had to be the enemy, and, indeed were part of a world that was united against. Any step forward for any one of them was a loss for us in the overall war.
It was clear that Vietnam could never invade the United States. They were no direct threat to us. Indeed, Ho Chi Minh expressed a great deal of admiration for the United States and offered friendship.
But we had to stop South Vietnam from going Communist because if we didn't lots of bad things would happen. All of South East Asia would fall like dominoes. After that, Indonesia, the Phillipines, Australia, India, and soon we would be surrounded and alone.
So we went to war. We fought for ten years. 58,000 Americans died.153,000 were wounded. At least 1,000,000 Vietnamese died.
Then we withdrew.
What happened? Was the vast Communist bloc strengthened?
Profitable little foreign wars, shared sacrifice and greenback patriots.
Greenback patriots promote and start wars, our troops and their families exclusively bear the burden of sacrifice, and the perpetual money making machine called the Military Industrial Complex is busy inventing new enemies.
The profits go to plutocrats, corporations, investors and to a much lesser degree employees. Our troops sacrifice their lives, limbs and sanity to the horror of war and the perpetual money making machine called the Military Industrial Complex is busy inventing new enemies.
The "Decider," never once considering the concept of shared sacrifice rewards Greenback patriots with more tax cuts, and the perpetual money making machine called the Military Industrial Complex is busy inventing new enemies.
Where will it all end?
by
rabblerowzer (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 227 comments)
on Wednesday, November 22, 2006 at 9:55:42 AM
A very good piece. The author aims to accomplish a specific goal-compare diffrent kinds of "war" and different "reasons" (read "excuses") for going to war. Mr. Reinhart carefully isolates his points from the major extraneous distractions surrounding the comparison, i.e. the immorality of the war, the "insurgency", Junior's rampant megalomania and, of course, the REAL reason for all of the dead bodies littering the Middle East- the fight to control the world's oil-then shows us exactly why he is right. Great work.
Mr. Reinhart, however, omitted one obvious instance where we now face yet another disastrous outcome... our invasion and subsequent pull-out from Afghanistan..( Yes, I know we're still "there" but not in numbers that will-or are-doing any good.)Here was a situation where almost the entire US population supported both the invasion and the stated motivation behind it- -i.e. to flush out binLaden and oust his supporters, the iron fisted Taliban. In a country literally sick to death of war, we were welcomed as a force that could accomlish that goal, and in the process free the people of Afghanistan from the Taliban's tyranical rule. Bush and Rumsfeld had the support of both sides of the conflict, yet they blew it in record time to pursue their real objective-getting the oil fields of Iraq out of the hands of Saddam Hussein and back where it "belongs"-in the control of a puppet regime of the good-old USofA.
Because they ignored history-just as Mr. Reinhart points out-they were completely befuddled by and inequipped to deal with what actually happened in Iraq and the entire Middle East as a result of their stupidity. The entire region is in chaos; Iraq is in the midst of a civil war (let's call it what it is); Iran stands ready to start a World War-a nuclear holocaust- rather than cow-tow to the demands of the UN or the US, while back in Afghanistan- the Taliban (and binLaden?) is now re-eatablishing itself as the controlling force in the country. Yet, as this major power play unfolds against the backdrop of the Bush regime's colossal failure to accomplish one positive thing at home in six years, all Junior and Uncle Dick can think to do is cry in their milk and blame "the Democats." What a disgrace for this strong, pround country!
Thanks to Mr. Reinhart for an insightful article. I hate the fact that on this Thanksgiving Eve I must read the truth and feel so unbearably sad. But without people like this who are willing to take the time to speak the truth; without the insights of history to guide this country and our newly installed Congress- (and the next President-perhaps?) our leaders will just keep repeating the same stupid mistakes. And sooner or later they will get us all killed...mark my words. (Too bad I won't be around to say "I told you so!"
by
KatyClo (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 5 comments)
on Wednesday, November 22, 2006 at 5:34:42 PM
First, let me explain that my first comment failed to post, so if you fnd a duplicate of this with a different title, please delete one-Thanks and sorry for any confusion.
Now-what I really want to say-
A very good piece. The author aims to accomplish a specific goal-compare diffrent kinds of "war" and different "reasons" (read "excuses") for going to war. Mr. Beinhart carefully isolates his points from the major extraneous distractions surrounding the comparison, i.e. the immorality of the war, the "insurgency", Junior's rampant megalomania and, of course, the REAL reason for all of the dead bodies littering the Middle East- the fight to control the world's oil-then shows us exactly why he is right. Great work.
Mr. Reinhart, however, omitted one obvious instance where we now face yet another disastrous outcome... our invasion and subsequent pull-out from Afghanistan..( Yes, I know we're still "there" but not in numbers that will-or are-doing any good.)Here was a situation where almost the entire US population supported both the invasion and the stated motivation behind it- -i.e. to flush out binLaden and oust his supporters, the iron fisted Taliban. In a country literally sick to death of war, we were welcomed as a force that could accomlish that goal, and in the process free the people of Afghanistan from the Taliban's tyranical rule. Bush and Rumsfeld had the support of both sides of the conflict, yet they blew it in record time to pursue their real objective-getting the oil fields of Iraq out of the hands of Saddam Hussein and back where it "belongs"-in the control of a puppet regime of the good-old USofA.
Because they ignored history-just as Mr. Beinhart points out-they were completely befuddled by and inequipped to deal with what actually happened in Iraq and the entire Middle East as a result of their stupidity. The entire region is in chaos; Iraq is in the midst of a civil war (let's call it what it is); Iran stands ready to start a World War-a nuclear holocaust- rather than cow-tow to the demands of the UN or the US, while back in Afghanistan- the Taliban (and binLaden?) is now re-eatablishing itself as the controlling force in the country. Yet, as this major power play unfolds against the backdrop of the Bush regime's colossal failure to accomplish one positive thing at home in six years, all Junior and Uncle Dick can think to do is cry in their milk and blame "the Democats." What a disgrace for this strong, pround country!
Thanks to Mr. Beinhart for an insightful article. I hate the fact that on this Thanksgiving Eve I must read the truth and feel so unbearably sad. But without people like this who are willing to take the time to speak the truth; without the insights of history to guide this country and our newly installed Congress- (and the next President-perhaps?) our leaders will just keep repeating the same stupid mistakes. And sooner or later they will get us all killed...mark my words. (Too bad I won't be around to say "I told you so!"
by
KatyClo (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 5 comments)
on Wednesday, November 22, 2006 at 5:45:15 PM
3 comments
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