Posted on 12/27/2005 11:13:27 PM PST by FairOpinion
With the mounting casualties among IRAQI CIVILIANS and American troops, Americans are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with their president's policy, and more skeptical about the justification for going to war in the first place.
PRESIDEN GEORGE W. BUSH doesn’t seem to have a clear strategy for finishing what he started in IRAQ , which led many analysts to start drawing parallels between the current war and VIETNAM, accusing American policymakers of repeating old mistakes committed by the U.S. government during the Vietnam era.
Washington has become majorly dependant on its military might to achieve its political ends; fooling the public by painting unrealistically rosy predictions of how long Iraq war will last.
According to analysts, questions that ended President Lyndon Johnson's hopes for a second term in 1968 are now threatening Mr. Bush.
"The VIETNAM WAR started as a guerrilla war and then escalated into a conventional war; in IRAQ , it started as a conventional war and now it's deteriorated into a guerrilla war," the USA Today once quoted Stanley Karnow a Pulitzer Prize-winning author as saying.
But some may reject the Vietnamization of the current U.S. war, arguing that VIETNAM is in Southeast Asia and IRAQ is in the Middle East, and that Vietnam war was fought in rain forests, while the current war is in desert towns.
Despite how hard the AMERICAN PRESIDENT tries to shift the world's attention from drawing similarities between the two bloody wars, the "comparison keeps creeping into the national conversation", an editorial on The Boston Globe says.
Numerous historians, political scientists and congressional Democrats have warned that a Vietnam-style quagmire is taking place in Iraq.
One true similarity between the two wars is that both Vietnam were wars of choice. Neither SADDAM HUSSEIN nor Ho Chi Minh posed any threat to the national security of the U.S. or the entire world.
However, in the two cases, the U.S. government "took the road to intervention to further the perceived American interests", The Globe article continues.
The only difference is that VIETNAM was a communist threat, while in Iraq, the threat of what Bush's admin claimed to be "Islamic extremism" didn't actually exist. Analysts say that Iraq war, with the animosity and hatred it fueled, will create extremists groups that will start posing a real threat to the Iraqi nation and the world, including the U.S.
Another similarity between the two wars is that the U.S. government reached a stage where it finds itself almost incapable of wining yet reluctant to lose.
The BUSH administration insists on "staying the course", but this is not a long-term option. The recently announced troop reduction is a reflection of the domestic pressure he's currently facing, not conditions in IRAQ.
As did Lyndon Johnson in the past, the current American President keeps repeating the rhetoric that the U.S. wont' leave the battlefield until victory, and "that we are fighting them there so we won't have to fight them at home".
Recently, Richard Nixon's defense secretary, Melvin Laird, wrote: ''Both the VIETNAM WAR and the IRAQ WAR were launched based on intelligence failures and possibly outright deception." So launching a war on the basis of lies and deception makes the two wars similar a great extent.
Moreover, in Vietnam, ''elections were choreographed by the United States to empower corrupt, selfish men who were no more than dictators in the garb of statesmen." Melvin Laird wrote.
With their reliance on fire power, the U.S. invaders in Iraq caused great destruction and loss of civilian life not less than that caused in Vietnam War. The atrocities now committed in IRAQ war and the administration's handling of the Abu Ghraib detainees are similar to those that took place in VIETNAM.
The U.S. is stuck in Iraq, and the war seems to have no end.
More MSM & Dem treason.
"The recently announced troop reduction is a reflection of the domestic pressure he's currently facing, not conditions in IRAQ."
Our domestic enemies are trying to make Iraq into Vietnam.
No, Iraq is another Normandy, and the newest gang of Nazi thugs is going down as surely and catastrophically as the last.
There are so many things wrong with this article it is hard to know where to start.
> According to analysts, questions that ended President Lyndon Johnson's hopes for a second term in 1968 are now threatening Mr. Bush.
Nonsense-on-stilts! Utter bollix! In what way is he threatened? To not get re-elected? President Bush is already on his second term, and cannot have another one unless you Yanks change the rules.
'Tis a minor technicality, mind. Sadly, it makes hash of the analysts' perfectly idiotic assertion. Doesn't Al Jazeera have any Editors?
WOW! This is going to be soooo coool!
If it is like Vietnam and Bagdad is like Saigon, Then Terhan will be like Hanoi and we can send fleets of B-52's over head day and night, around the clock!
Maybe we can do a 'secret war' by crossing the border in to Syria. (sarcasm off)
Al Jazeera doesnt have any idea what its talking about.
"You are about to embark on the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these past few months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.
Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely.
But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Out home fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together in Victory!
I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in combat. We will accept nothing less than full Victory!
Good luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.
Dwight D. Eisenhower"
Sixty-two years later. Change the names, change the places: this could have been written yesterday. 'Tis a Great Crusade, and even the Bad Heads know it. They are shaking in their cheap sandals, too. The Infidels are coming, and Death and defeat await.
That's why they're so keen to call this "Vietnam" but it's not: its a full-on Crusade, like D-Day at Normandie. With the same outcome inevitable.
God bless the Troops!
God bless America!
God bless President George W Bush!
.
So, it doesn't take long for Al Qaeda Media arm Al Gazeera to pick up on what DEAN had to say about Iraq..?
Enter CLARITY...
Tran Blasts Dean: Calls for Solidarity in Iraq
http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1536289/posts
.
“its a full-on Crusade, like D-Day at Normandie”
Please stop using WWII analogy. You know it’s incorrect. We don’t have a draft today, unlike previous Wars.
Our DOD budget per our GDP is not what you would think it should be if we are fighting WWIII. We don’t have this Armanda of men wading across Iraq for the final push to remover terrorist, like we did in WWII.
Instead of raising the number of troops for the final “Crusade” we are cutting back. If Iraq is the center of the War on Terror then we should continue to meet them head on with the finest military in the world. Instead we are going to rely on the Iraqi people to defeat the remaining terrorist.
Ironic that you attack media misrepresntation, yet your title will give the casual reader the impression that the 'Al Jazeera' you are talking about is the well known tv news station.
Oversight on your part or deleiberate dishonesty?
FWIW, Al Jazeera's (as in the one everyone has heard of) standards of journalism are much higher than this pap.
Ah, but on further enquiry I see you have been corrected before when using Aljazeera.com as a source and representing it as 'Al Jazeera' with no rider that this is not the tv station:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1499272/posts
So, I'll have to assume deliberate dishonesty.
> Please stop using WWII analogy. You know it’s incorrect. We don’t have a draft today, unlike previous Wars...
> ...We don’t have this Armanda of men wading across Iraq for the final push to remover terrorist, like we did in WWII.
What you say is true, to a point. What your argument lacks, tho', is a sense of proportion. Iraq isn't Nazi Germany, it is a bizarre enclave in the Middle East, with plenty of oil and not much fighting nouse. Hence there is no need for a draft. And no need for an Armada.
It is, however, very much a solid clash of wills and ideology, of Good against Evil. With this comes a resolute requirement for valor and courage from the fighting troops, exactly as was needed in 1944.
No, with due respect I stand by the WW-II analogy. Proportionally-speaking, it is quite accurate and appropriate.
Was this written by those two well known Al Jazeera reporters, Scott Ritter or the Ex Marine Captain?
Maybe the greatest failure of President Bush was not to mobilize us for war after 9/11. At that point he could have had a military of any size of his choosing, gotten industry in line and started a genuine world wide crusade.
He didnt and now we have what we have.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
