Bush is wrong: Iraq is not Vietnam

[Teenager]

President Bush has for the first time conceded a similarity between events in Iraq and those in Vietnam 40 years ago. Asked in a television interview on Wednesday if he now saw a similarity between the recent escalation of American losses in Iraq and those suffered in the Tet offensive of 1968, he admitted that the rise of casualties in the past weeks had given ground for making a comparison. The President's admission will probably trigger a feeding frenzy in the American media, which has been seeking to equate Iraq with Vietnam ever since the insurgency started to inflict significant casualties.

It has to be said, however, that the President's admission will come as a surprise to those with long historical memories. Indeed, it is a surprise that the President allowed himself to be drawn. I recently had the opportunity to discuss Iraq with the President in the Oval Office at an intimate meeting with a small group of historians.

Mr Bush then — early September — did not want to discuss Iraq, but larger issues of the culture clash between radical Islam and the Christian West. Indeed, he has been ill-advised to rise to the bait. Many of those who took sides over Vietnam are still alive and active, still animated by the passions that transfixed the American people in the 1960s. His admission can do nothing but harm, certainly to him and to his administration, but also to the US forces in general and to the servicemen in Iraq in particular.

Be sure to read the entire article found here. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/10/20/do2002.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2006/10/20/ixopinion.html)

[Beowulf]

The link isn't working but I will comment on this.
Teenager, Iraq IS in many ways like Vietnam. First, the politicians are losing the war by dictating how the military will fight....or won't fight. It is obvious that the government didn't learn from that.

Second, how many times do we here on the news about how U.S. patrols entered a known terrorist area, secured it, had to leave it only to come back and do it all over again? Often enough I think. We did the same thing in Vietnam, fighting over the same turf multiple times.

Third, we are trying to get the people of Iraq to begin doing things themselves, as they should but they don't show signs of doing things themselves. The South Vietnamese were much like that. Notice now that there are no "South Vietnamese."

Those are a few things that I find similar.

[DoctorDoom]

It's very revealing that Bush was misled into equating Iraq to Vietnam, when it has been the libeRAT/MSM drumbeat since 2003 that Iraq is another Vietnam. Look up quagmire.

Re the Tet offensive, our guys decisively WON that encounter. It was that brazen liar and traitor, Walter Cronkite; his fellow liars in the leftist media; the marching morons in the streets; worthless piles of dog shit like Kerry, Fonda and Clark (who should have been shot the instant they set foot on US soil); and the gutless, spineless fool, Johnson, who betrayed the soldiers in the field and the people of Vietnam.

In a recent interview published in The Wall Street Journal, former Colonel Bui Tin who served on the general staff of the North Vietnamese Army and received the unconditional surrender of South Vietnam on April 30,1975, confirmed the American Tet 1968 military victory: "Our loses were staggering and a complete surprise. Giap later told me that Tet had been a military defeat, though we had gained the planned political advantages when Johnson agreed to negotiate and did not run for reelection. The second and third waves in May and September were, in retrospect, mistakes. Our forces in the South were nearly wiped out by all the fighting in 1968. It took us until 1971 to reestablish our presence, but we had to use North Vietnamese troops as local guerrillas. If the American forces had not begun to withdraw under Nixon in 1969, they could have punished us severely. We suffered badly in 1969 and 1970 as it was."

On strategy: "If Johnson had granted Westmoreland's requests to enter Laos and block the Ho Chi Minh trail, Hanoi could not have won the war. It was the only way we could bring sufficient military power to bear on the fighting in the South. Building and maintaining the trail was a huge effort involving tens of thousands of soldiers, drivers, repair teams, medical stations, communication units, etc. Our operations were never compromised by attacks on the trail. At times, accurate B-52 strikes would cause real damage, but we put so much in at the top of the trail that enough men and weapons to prolong the war always came out the bottom. If all the bombing had been concentrated at one time, it would have hurt our efforts. But the bombing was expanded in slow stages under Johnson and it didn't worry us. We had plenty of time to prepare alternative routes and facilities. We always had stockpiles of rice ready to feed the people for months if a harvest was damaged. The Soviets bought rice from Thailand for us.

And the left: "Support for the war from our rear was completely secure while the American rear was vulnerable. Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9AM to follow the growth of the antiwar movement. Visits to Hanoi by Jane Fonda and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses. We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a red Vietnamese dress, said at a press conference that she was ashamed of American actions in the war and would struggle along with us ... those people represented the conscience of America ... part of it's war-making capability, and we were turning that power in our favor."Colonel Bui Tin (http://www.lcompanyranger.com/weapons/colonelbuitinpage.htm)

There are silimarities to Vietnam. Our guys are fighting courageously and resolutely, and out leftist assholes are undermining them, and giving aid and comfort to those who lust to kill them. And none dare call it treason.

Well, one will. It's treason, and the US should deal with the traitors by executing the bastards en masse.

[Jester21]

First, the politicians are losing the war by dictating how the military will fight
Yup.

[Lubbock]

I see everyone bought into the Liberal Spin on what GWB actually said.

Jeez!

[Marcster]

...worthless piles of dog shit like Kerry, Fonda and Clark (who should have been shot the instant they set foot on US soil)...
Doom -- I'm a little young to remember (since I was born in '72). Were Kerry, Fonda and Clark on TV about Vietnam or was it just at "rallies"?

[DesertFox]

On tv and in Congress.

[Teenager]

The link isn't working but I will comment on this.
Teenager, Iraq IS in many ways like Vietnam. First, the politicians are losing the war by dictating how the military will fight....or won't fight. It is obvious that the government didn't learn from that.

Second, how many times do we here on the news about how U.S. patrols entered a known terrorist area, secured it, had to leave it only to come back and do it all over again? Often enough I think. We did the same thing in Vietnam, fighting over the same turf multiple times.

Third, we are trying to get the people of Iraq to begin doing things themselves, as they should but they don't show signs of doing things themselves. The South Vietnamese were much like that. Notice now that there are no "South Vietnamese."

Those are a few things that I find similar.


The link is working for me. Should I post the entire article so ya'll can read the author's reasons for stating "Bush is wrong: Iraq is not Vietnam."????


One reason why I tend to agree with the article is because of the vast difference of the casuality list, the difference between the Vietnamese army and the terrorists insurgency, and how radically different muslims view the situation in Iraq.

The only similarity between the two are the two presidents.

President Johnson stated "If I've lost Kronkite," he said to his staff, "I have lost the war."
If President Bush also concedes defeat in the face of the media, then America will surely lose.

[Rhino]

I see everyone bought into the Liberal Spin on what GWB actually said.

Jeez!Apparently so. If you read the article, he did not equate Iraq to Vietnam at all. Somebody's abusing his journalistic license. I'd like to see the actual transcript, since the author never actually supplies a single quote in the article, and the British press is notorious for spinning stuff dramatically.

[Rhino]

Should I post the entire article so ya'll can read the author's reasons for stating "Bush is wrong: Iraq is not Vietnam."????No. The link works.

[Antigone]

Apparently so. If you read the article, he did not equate Iraq to Vietnam at all. Somebody's abusing his journalistic license. I'd like to see the actual transcript, since the author never actually supplies a single quote in the article, and the British press is notorious for spinning stuff dramatically.

Here is a link with some of what was said.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=2583579

[Rhino]

Thank you. There is much more context there, and it proves what I suspected. He did not equate the conflicts to each other. He noted a couple of similarities, specifically a stepped-up level of violence heading into an election and the fact that the enemy is trying to inflict enough damage that we'd leave.

I've got another similarity. Automatic weapons and explosives were used in both. Does that equate the conflicts? Pfffftttt!!!

[DoctorDoom]

From the ABC article:

"It's not questioning their patriotism. I think it's questioning their judgment," he said.The prez has to be civil. I don't. The libeRATs are traitors.

[blackwatch]

I would also like to point out that the 'TET' (means 'Year of the Rat per Chinese calender) offensive gutted the South Vietnamese "VietCong" (communists), which was staged by the North Vietnamese communists (NVA) on purpose to remove the 'Cong" as a political party, and as would be rivals, to the hardcore communist North for control of Vietnam....TET set the stage for the killing fields in Laos and Cambodia also....

Think it can't happen again if the communists that call themselves 'liberals' regain control? Think again....the US communist 'liberals' of the 1970's helped their communist brothers kill millions in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, let alone Vietnam...

[Naturalized-Texan]

Just as the Battle of the Bulge and the Tet Offensive were the last gasps of defeated enemies, the current increased terrorist violence in Iraq is the last gasp of a defeated enemy. The goal of the increased terrorist violence is to elect a Democrat Congress in November because the terrorists know that the cut-and-run Democrats will allow them to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

[Bluemoon_Rising]

Is Bush beginning to shape his policy for a future pull-out?

I don't think so.

In any event, I was thinking precisely what N-T writes. On the contrary, The current situation in Iraq is precisely like the Tet Offensive in the sense that if we hold the line, the insurgents are done.

[Naturalized-Texan]

In any event, I was thinking precisely what N-T writes. On the contrary, The current situation in Iraq is precisely like the Tet Offensive in the sense that if we hold the line, the insurgents are done.
Precisely! If it hadn't been for the pro-Communist propaganda from Cronkite, et al., the politicians and the Generals would have insisted that our troops follow up their victory in the Tet Offensive. Fortunately, we now have a president who ignores all the pro-terrorist propaganda from the liberal media and the leftist cut-and-run politicians.

[Maggie_T]

From the ABC article:

The prez has to be civil. I don't. The libeRATs are traitors.

Civil schmivil. Guys, let's face it. Bush does not have the wit, or presence of mind, to defend his positions when he's put against the wall. Believe me, it hurts to admit it, but it's true.

Can you imagine Reagan admitting defeat so easily? I can't.

It's bad enough that a good deal of Americans already think the WoT is a lost cause, courtesy of the drive-by media's incessant undermining of it. If the president is the first to admit that this is "another Vietnam" what do you think the sheeple will think (term used loosely)?

Teenager, you're right. Bush made a big boo-boo. Very unfortunate.

[Tazeeyore]

Please, remember Vietnam and don't let John Kerry and Ted Kennedy repeat history. The day Kennedy offered legislation to cut funding for the war, at the behest of none other than the coward John Kerry, North Vietnamese and Cambodian Communists began an assault on innocent civilians unlike anything in history. Over three million innocent human beings, men, women and children were slaughtered like dieased animals. How those two sorry, low-life iconoclasts sleep at night is beyond me. I guess when you are a coward and have no soul you have no problem with such things. Now John Murtha wants to repeat that scene along with Kerry and Kennedy. What a useless bunch of scumbag cowards and greedy blatherskite artists. It is a wonder to me that Kerry wasn't taken out by his own men the second time he ran from battle. Tells me his crewmen were just as chicken shit as he was. And now I wonder why God lets people like Kennedy and Murtha live and cause so much dissention and hate for this country. Hopefully their miserable lives will torment them until they are treated to the same injustices they cause our soldiers and people our military try to free.

[dajoga]

Just as the Battle of the Bulge and the Tet Offensive were the last gasps of defeated enemies, the current increased terrorist violence in Iraq is the last gasp of a defeated enemy. The goal of the increased terrorist violence is to elect a Democrat Congress in November because the terrorists know that the cut-and-run Democrats will allow them to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

:claps: :thumb:

Yup--if you'd take quotes by the ragheads and quotes by the 'rats w/o the speakers name, and throw them into a hat and pull them out one by one and read them, the average person wouldn't be able to tell who said what.

[Naturalized-Texan]

:claps: :thumb:

Yup--if you'd take quotes by the ragheads and quotes by the 'rats w/o the speakers name, and throw them into a hat and pull them out one by one and read them, the average person wouldn't be able to tell who said what.
Rush did that exact thing in the October 2006 Limbaugh Letter. It's scary to see how the terrorists are spouting Democrat talking points and vice versa.