“It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.”
So said Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman who it would be fair to say heard his fair share of shrieks and groans in his time.
Equally fair to mention would be that the Veterans of Foreign Wars had fired a few shots and probably heard a few whistle past far to close for comfort.
So how can a group of bona fide war veterans listen and even applaud a person who, despite doing everything possible to keep his own arse out of the Vietnam war, then goes on to say that it should of gone on longer? I am sure their 60,000 dead buddies wouldn't mind hearing about what he was doing while they got killed in the jungles of Southeast Asia. It is well known that Bush family pulled the strings to get him a cushy berth in the Texas Air National Guard where his greatest worry was getting caught driving whilst drunk.
Bush invoked the memory of Vietnam, comparing his ongoing War in Iraq to several wars and conflicts involving America over the past 70 odd years to justify his actions.
His shaky grip on History has been roundly condemned on most media outlets but the best quote came from one talking head on CNN who asked of Bush, 'If you learned so much from history, how did you ever get us involved in another quagmire?"'
6 comments:
That Bush learned something is a novel idea, one I hadn't thought of.
Great Post, Lucy!
Well done. I couldn't add a thing, but David Halberstam, one of my favorite authors (who was unfortunately killed in an auto wreck this past April), drives the nail deeper in his last article for Vanity Fair.
Though I find it interesting that Bush has suddenly embraced the Vietnam analogy, I have never found it particularly fitting myself.
First and foremost, the initial invasion of Vietnam was imperialist but done for different reasons, namely maintaining the North/South Vietnamese border and preventing invasion. Though the South was no worse a dictatorship than the North, America's stated goal was to aid the resistance to the invasion, not to topple a government.
The war in Iraq was based on fundamentally-different goals, namely ousting Saddam's regime, installing a U.S.-friendly government, and securing Iraqi oil field. What we are left with is a politically-imperialist war versus an economically-imperialist war.
Hmmph.
I've been to VFW meetings and talked to a lot of elderly war vets. The majority of them support this administration it's sad to say. I don't get it because of his treatment of current enlistees as well as his utter disregard for the vets, they should despise him. Maybe it's is down-home "charm". LOL I do know a couple of Vietnam vets that would like to show him a thing or two about real war. But that's it. crazy.
I'm impressed that Bush has finally remembered the 'V' word! He's not using it in the right way of course, but baby steps... baby steps...
"What we are left with is a politically-imperialist war versus an economically-imperialist war."
I think Dave is correct about this, however, both conflicts do seem to have a fairly major similarity too, which I'm sure I don't need to spell out for anyone.
I have heard the Iraq is the new Vietnam argument denied by the White House almost as many times as i have heard the Iraq is Britains new Suez argunment denied here.
I think Dave, the Vietnam argument is used mainly in the vein that a poorly armed bunch of militants is taking the fight to, and more than holding its own, against one of the the most powerful armies on the planet.
I agree totally that one was political and one economically motivated. Both were wrong.
Could it be Jenny, one of those cases where the veterans felt they had to applaud Bush during his speech as not to be seen as unpatriotic, a barb that is thrown about by many pro-war supporters?
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