On Vietnam and Iraq
I just found this article in the WaPo interesting. At a conference titled "Vietnam and the Presidency" Kissinger, Al Haig, Jack Valenti and others inevitably got into the parallels between Iraq and Vietnam, and their pessimism is illuminating.
These are not foreign policy lightweights or, besides Carter, people who can be dismissed as anti-Bush. If you weren't concerned about "the way forward" in Iraq before, I would think that this would prick up your ears.
"You cannot win against an insurgency that springs from the population," said Jack Valenti, former special assistant to President Lyndon B. Johnson. "There's never been an insurgency that doesn't prevail against a mighty power."
"How much reform can you do," former secretary of state Henry A. Kissinger wondered later, "simultaneously with fighting a war?"....
"It appears to me we haven't learned very much," said Alexander M. Haig Jr.,....
For all the debates about Vietnam, there was one thing that most every speaker agreed on. "The sorry odor of the same aromas that we found in Vietnam" can be detected in Iraq today, Valenti said....
"I think [Vietnam] sent a cautionary signal . . . that we should be more cautious in military adventurism," former president Jimmy Carter said in a videotaped interview played Saturday. "These lessons that were learned I think have been forgotten or ignored in the present Iraq war."....
[Regarding a question on how to go forward in Iraq]
These are not foreign policy lightweights or, besides Carter, people who can be dismissed as anti-Bush. If you weren't concerned about "the way forward" in Iraq before, I would think that this would prick up your ears.
posted by mikevotes at
6:41 AM
3 Comments:
There is no exit strategy in Iraq because Bush and Co. aren't planning on leaving there until every last drop of oil is pumped out of the sand.
By
Lew Scannon, at 9:59 AM
Also interesting to note that the vast majority of them are Republicans, many of which were involved in Vietnam.
Senator and Vietnam vet Chuck Hagel noted last year that there were growing parallels between the wars.
By
Charlie, at 12:58 PM
That's a really good point, Charlie. The divide is really marked by the older more traditional "nixonian" republicans, (who I disagree with, but are rational enough to engage with) and this bizarre new hyper activist foreign policy crazies who weren't burned by Vietnam either by age, circumstance, or willfull act.
It seems that very few of the Vietnam vets, at least on the top political level, are supporting the current policy anymore, besides of course McCain who is supporting it to get the Bush donor list.
Lew, I'm certainly willing to entertain that, BUT, if that's the case, current policy is undermining stable oil production. I think, at this point, they're more concerned with staying there to have a military presence to point at Iran #2 OPEC producer and as a "quick response" if the Saudis fail.
I think pumping oil out of Iraq is a secondary near term goal to threatening the #1 and #2 producers.
Just an opinion.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 1:39 PM
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