Posted on 05/09/2004 9:40:22 AM PDT by Bob J
In their unholy war for power, liberals and Democrats along with their comrades in the media have begun the propaganda drumbeat to convince voters that Iraq is becoming this generations twenty-first century Vietnam.
If Iraq becomes another Vietnam, it won’t be for reasons proffered from the left. Vietnam may have been a low point in American history but it wasn’t a military failure, our troops won every major battle. The war was lost when the left successfully convinced the American public it wasn’t worth fighting, the cost was too high, and more importantly, our military was corrupt and could not be trusted to conduct operations in an acceptable manner. In his 1985 memoir about the war, Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap wrote that if it weren't for organizations like Kerry's “Vietnam Veterans Against the War”, Hanoi would have surrendered to the U.S. Buoying enemy support while sapping the will of the American people, the left extended the Vietnam war resulting in significant additional loss of Vietnamese and American lives and the eventual bug out by America. Our military, which should have returned as defending heroes bringing democracy to the oppressed people of the world, were spat upon and called baby killers. Thank you J.F. Kerry, a suitable if not ignominious Democrat Presidential candidate.
The left used the excuse of Vietnam (a war initiated and escalated by Democrats) as a pretext for attacking and defeating the sitting Republican President, Richard Nixon. Watergate may have been the final straw that precipitated Nixon’s capitulation, but there is little doubt his saddle bags were full of ‘Nam hay when that pony’s spine snapped. The peace agreement aside, he was squarely in the sites of every commusocialist, sandal and beads flower child and sleazy politician jumping on their bandwagon to score a few points in the next popularity poll.
It begins as a drip but will soon turn into a torrent. Using their dominance and control of the media, the left has xeroxed their strategy against Nixon and is targeting Bush, conservatives and our military. Dozens of articles in major newspapers, speeches by democrat leaders and media exposé’s are questioning the “cost” of Iraq and America’s ability to shoulder that burden. Tabloid-like congressional investigations, in a time of war, ruthlessly attack our leaders flinging outrageous innuendo of corruption and immorality. Now, sensationalized revelations of fraternity pranks by military police against Muslim detainees will shamelessly be used by the left as evidence our military does not have the moral high ground to conduct this engagement.
The political left is utterly contemptible. Their sworn if not patriotic duty to govern in America’s best interests is as foreign to them as truth. To satiate their hatred for George Bush and consuming lust for power they will create out of sackcloth another Vietnam for this country and in the process crush American initiative, respect and honor while unnecessarily sacrificing additional American lives. Again.
Bob Johnson is a Board member of the Free Republic Network and President of RIGHTALK, America’s conservative radio Townhall.
Right. And we're about five more years and perhaps 40,000 casualties away from Vietnam II. If things are no further along by that time, I'll consider the comparison valid.
That is not true. Nixon was not liked at all, and neither was Lyndon Johnson. The public did not like Goldwater. That is why they elected LBJ. They disliked Goldwater a lot. The same is true of Nixon and HHH. The center thought HHH was a wimp. They did not like Nixon, but they could not stomach the wimpy HHH.
There was a lot of fear that Republicans would not vote for Ike in 1952. Ike was a former Democrat. Truman had offered to help Ike get the Democratic nomination in 1952 if Ike would run as a Democrat. The far right loved the Truman bashing Nixon for his attacks on the state department's Alger Hiss. Ike knew the center did not like Nixon any more than they liked McCarthy. Ike needed help with the far right and Nixon got it for him. No one thought Nixon was likable.
The left and the media could not get Nixon at the polls on the war issue in 1972. They tried hard in 1972 to defeat Nixon with the war. The right and center did not believe the attacks on Nixon based on the war were valid. They voted for him. While the center and moderates did not like Nixon, they really feared McGovern would weaken us enough so we would lose the cold war. Nixon won in 1972 because the swing voters feared McGovern... not because they liked Nixon.
The Watergate break-in was on June 17th 1972. Almost 5 months before the 1972 election. It made no news at all until Nixon won the biggest victory at the polls in the 20th century. The media and left felt that Viet Nam would take Nixon down as it had LBJ. It did not work.
To get Nixon they had to turn the attack from Nixon's war tactics, to his honesty. Attacks on honesty and truthfulness rang true against Richard (Tricky Dick) Nixon. The name Tricky Dick was given to Nixon when he first ran for VP with Ike in 1952... 14 years before he became President. Lying was something the public would not tolerate from a disliked Nixon. Consider the public did tolerate lying from a Bill Clinton. They liked Bill they did not like Dick. It is that simple.
After 8 years of Ike's peace and prosperity Nixon should have done to JFK in 1960 what Bush 41 did to Dukakis in 1988. The term Mass. liberal should have taken JFK out. But Nixon was not likable and JFK was. JFK won an election he should not have won. Just as Bush 43 won an election he should not have won over Gore. The public liked JFK and they like Dubya. They did not like Nixon and they do not like Gore.
However the right and center supported pro war stance in the VietNam war. The left did not support LBJ's pro war stance in the same war. They left didn't support Nixon either. Republicans can win without the left. No Democrat can.
Only after Nixon's 1972 victory did the Democrats use Watergate to remove Nixon from office. To remove Nixon required that the Republicans turn on Nixon. Howard Baker lead that charge. Had Nixon been a likable person he would have survived Watergate as Clinton Survived Monica and a host of other charges. Baker had aspirations to be president. He tried hard in 1980... Baker spent almost $100,000 dollars a vote in New Hampshire in 1980.
LBJ was taken down by the Vietnam war. The left liked his great Society but hated him and his war. It was LBJ's Democratic base that went away from him. They did not like him and refused to support his war. That is why LBJ did not run for re-election.
Likability explains how a president can retain support when he does something the center does not like. The center and right did not disagree with Nixon on Vietnam.. When the war was over, they got him on an effort to spy on Democrats. The center would not buy it.
The center bought into Clinton because they liked him. They will buy into Bush for the same reason.
Declaring the left the winner already? Scripting the path they should follow? No faith in Bush or his crew?
Swill.
I don't buy the broad-brush analysis in bold. Maybe you could be more specific?
I kinda agree. We were the W.W. II "greatest generation" or closely associated with it (dependents) in those days. Bob J's statement is correct with qualifiers, IMO.
Your statement about the leadership is correct, also The massive retaliation of the 1950s had given way to measured response.
You may remember Scotty Reston. His writings trace our decision to confront "wars of liberation" in Vietnam to Kennedy's humiliation by Khrushchev in Vienna (1961). By 1963 the US has 16,000 servicemen in Vietnam. Much too timid considering the threat, like Cuba and Kennedy's Bay of Pigs. Ike would have done it right.
Though Korea showed us that wars will be "limited" nevertheless we expected victory and our forces delivered defeating the Chi-coms. Mao wanted desperately to show the world that he could defeat the entire U.S. Eighth Army. To wit, "Mao Telegram to Stalin re the Decision to Send ... troops to annihilate the American troops in Korea, principally the Eighth Army. . . ."
The point is, the public was caught flat footed, IMO. On the surface, i.e., in the mainstream press, "the American public [believed] it wasn't worth fighting." That's all that was being reported especially on TV "news" and from 1968 on.
I am absolutely convinced that most Americans were just dumb in the sense that they were silenced. We were hoodwinked. We had never lost a war. Americans, especially Washington and our press, had never betrayed our military. It wasn't happening. It'll be okay? But politicians heard only the press and the "anti-war" demonstrators.
The leftist pig vomit fooled us once. Shame on them.
I agree with much of your post re the left, but not regarding the prosecution of the War in Vietnam. I think Gen. Giap was full of crap. The North Vietnamese were not ready to surrender, and the South Vietnamese leadership was so corrupt, that it could not inspire the people to kill and die for it. The ARVN was a second-rate force. And while Gen. Westmoreland was and is a good and decent man, his methods were wrong for the war we were in. He was fighting a European-style war with big units and conventional tactics. He needed to rely more on smaller, more agile units and unconventional tactics (e.g., special forces), the way we eventually did, too late, under Gen. Abrams, and a generation later, in Afghanistan. Westy against the communists was like the redcoats against our own irregulars.
In real terms selling missiles to the Iranians who has just held our people hostage had to be worse than spying on Democrats in their Watergate office. The media thought they had Reagan but it did not stick. We thought we had Clinton but the public did not care.. They liked Clinton and defended the indefensible. The same was true of HST. After all we found traitors in his state department at the height of the Cold War, Dewey could not beat him. The depression got worse under FDR but it did not hurt FDR at the polls. The people liked FDR and attacks failed. Attacks only caused the people to defend him.
This time for the second time there is talk radio and the Internet to get the truth to people. But it will make no difference. The Media can't hurt a politician the public likes and trusts.
A majority of the people like Duya and the people that work for him. The public likes Rummy, Condi, and Powell. The public does not want Rummy fired. They like him and they won't believe charges made against him.
When politicians the public likes are attacked the public gets angry at the attacker.. not those attacked. The media never figures it out. They just think they have to find an issue that will stick.
Attacking someone a person likes and respects is dumb. It just makes that person angry with the attacker. To get likable politician, the opponent has to be nice while offering better solutions to the problem. The desired reaction is, "I like X but Y seems to be a nice guy with better solutions."
Attacking will not work. An opponent can't even claim to be better. He must offer ideas that the public thinks is better and be as likable as the candidate he is trying to unseat. Smart Democrats know it. That is why they think Kerry is toast. He is attacking the unattackable.
I didn't excerpt your post, because my name is not quidnunc.... Just kidding -- it's brilliant. Your post explains why the traitors' own polls show 69% of the people supporting Rummy, while only 20% desire his ouster. And if those are the traitors' numbers, you can just imagine what the REAL numbers are!
I disagree that the public in general disliked Goldwater "a lot." He was a founder of modern conservatism. He was savaged by liberals of the day and I have been livid ever since. After the 1964 election there were serious articles by mainstream writers suggesting the need to restore his good name.
Goldwater represented the classic American side of all that was going on just as modern conservatism does today though neo-cons may disagree (1960s liberals).
There were a lot of things going on. What to do about the Communist wars of liberation, how to effect civil rights without sending all power to Washington, what to do about a Supreme Court using the commerce clause and "sociological jurisprudence" to make law, what to do about "free speech" campus riots and "if it feels good do it in the road" everywhere, tune out turn on, "lawn order" as the liberals scornfully termed law and order concerns, race riots, assassinations (got to check the timeline but I think they stopped after LBJ was no longer Veep or Pres), frequent and sometimes violent "civil disobedience" in the South, lies that conservative criticism of JFK caused Oswald to assassinate him, JFK/LBJ liberals sending shills to file FCC "Fairness Doctrine" complaints against conservative opinion on radio, and lots more that I'd have to google to refresh my memory.
Anyone who was on the conservative side was a "warmonger" and a "racist." There was no debating. The epithets became patented liberal guards against having to discuss any and all matters of national importance.
I have no disagreement with anything Bob says about the looney left and it's villainous consequences. Where I draw the line is saying that they were the cause of us losing the VN war. IMHO, we lost the war for one very basic reason and that would be the total lack of resolve to win the war. That can only be attributed to the top man and his #1 lieutenant.
We now have the war on terror because of the spineless dimocRAT we had for 8 years. It takes a man of resolve, conviction and character to direct a war. LBJ had none of the above and we paid a dear price for that fact.
One minor quibble -- I can't find any evidence that Giap ever mentioned the VVAW by name. The usual source for Giap's remarks is a 1995 article in the Wall Street Journal.
First, they will be comparing myths (lies) to Iraq in most cases. The best and most valuable example is the Tet offensive. Since 1968 the Communists' "most trusted man in America," Walter Cronkite, has defined what the general public feeeeeeeeeeels happened. He was lying. His lies IMO cost the lives of tens of thousands by encouraging his fellow internationalists to continue fighting.
Second, we are free to quote Communist general Giap's (paraphrasing) "the American press was my most valuable guerrilla." Others have cited his praise of the "anti-war" groups.
Third, we will see how the left used "issues" separate from the war to attack and destroy a wartime administration.
In other words the left ain't going to like the blowback. Americans are going to see what will likely happen as the left dusts off its Vietnam playbook and attempts to repeat its subversion.
Yes, ABCNNBCBS will never mention any of this but we have a free press today and it will get the word out. I sincerely hope. This could work in lieu of having "another 9/11" as many beleive it will take to "wake people up."
Fourth and maybe most important for the lives of our forces, civilians (politcians, etc.) in Washington can be reminded that they must examine what they do to avoid repeating those mistakes.
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