the United States is now Vietnam on a bad LSD trip

[tocqueville]

Iraq through the crazy mirror
By Tom Engelhardt

On the April day in 2003 when American troops first entered Baghdad, historian Marilyn Young suggested that Operation Iraqi Freedom was "Vietnam on crack cocaine". She wrote presciently at the time:
In less then two weeks a 30-year-old vocabulary is back: credibility gap, seek and destroy, hard to tell friend from foe, civilian interference in military affairs, the dominance of domestic politics, winning, or more often, losing hearts and minds.

That language - and the Vietnam template that goes with it - has never left us. Only this week, Republican Senator and presidential hopeful Chuck Hagel, who served in Vietnam, publicly attacked the administration's Iraq policy for "destabilizing" the Middle East and suggested that President George W Bush's constant "stay-the-course" refrain was "not a policy". He added, "We are locked into a bogged-down problem not ... dissimilar to where we were in Vietnam. The longer we stay, the more problems we're going to have."

Put another way, Young's statement might now be amended to read: "Iraq is what history looks like once the Bush administration took the equivalent of crack cocaine"; "the United States is now Vietnam on a bad LSD trip."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GH25Ak03.html

[DELUSIONAL]

1. I've never taken drugs -- so I'd say Iraq is like Vietnam on fast forward

In the beginning the public's reaction was really slow.

I lived on a US Naval base and many of my friend's fathers had or were serving in Vietnam -- and very few people were even aware of the war. This was the mid 1960s -- by the end of the 60s people were aware and there was a DRAFT.

Now it seems that there is an economic draft -- I just read about the 101th Washington State causality -- and this soldier joined the Army after he lost a well paying job at one of the mills. He needed a way to provide for his family so he joined the Army. I have a feeling that his story is being repeated -- with few good jobs and few ways to earn enough for college or even tech. school, many are joining the military.

It took until after 1971 or 72 for people to start asking questions -- WHY THE HELL ARE WE IN VIETNAM??

So this is the second year of the Iraq war and we are already at the 1971 Vietnam time frame when parents are asking WHY? And there are the deluded ones who are still cheer leading for bushie -- and remember that Nixon won in a landslide. Nixon was a filthy, lying bastard.

But I can see where the cocaine or drug parallel comes in -- because some of the bushie cult members sure act like they are on drugs. Some of the nut case callers to Air America talk show hosts who take calls sound like they've escaped from a nut house, they are off their anti psychotic drugs -- or they are on some sort of recreational type drug.

What is different is the demand that bushie cannot be criticized -- he can do no wrong. And he can't think of any mistake he has ever done -- that question was "too much work".

One major difference -- more people were engaged in discussing Vietnam -- pro or con -- and a whole lot more people had served in country or in support off the coast in one of the hundreds of Navy ships supplying the US war effort. It must be a major shock for service people to return from a place where they were involved in life and death issues 24/7 -- to the states where the war barely gets a back page mention.

At least even in the 60s -- the war was being reported. The media was doing their job. The MIA from this war are the corporate media -- we aren't getting the troops eye view -- those who view the corporate media might be getting a sanitized, officer PR view of the Iraq war. But nothing that remotely resembles what is really happening there -- none of the blood and guts, children starving to death -- etc. Nor is the story about poorly equipped military reaching most of the general public.