full page ad NYTimes - "Welcome To Vietnam, Mr President"

[protect freedom impeach bush now]

http://www.workingforchange.com/webgraphics/WFC/NYT.pdf

View the op-ad
Click here to view Working Assets' full-page New York Times advertisement featuring commentary by Max Cleland.

[neuvocat]

1. Oh my!

That's a big deal.

[veganwitch]

2. sweet jebus!!!

that rules!!!

working assests is the best. i will probably change to their service when i move.

[Former Republican]

3. Expect a segment from Bill O'LIElly

He just loves to criticize the NYT.

[RetroLounge]

4. Wow. Great ad...

eom

[RobertSeattle]

5. Print out the PDFs and hand them out!

[Il_Coniglietto]

8. Done.

I'm going to photocopy this (and blow it up a bit, the print's kinda hard to read) and pass it out to my friends tomorrow. I would give it out to the school, but I don't think the administration would allow it.

This really is a great piece. Gosh, and on an entire page? People like Max Cleland give me hope.

[La Resistance]

19. you are constitutionally protected

as long as it does not contain hate speech they are not allowed to stop you. If you do pass them out, be sure to do it during public times (before school, lunch, etc.) so they can't say you were causing a disruption or "ruining others' education".

[Media_Lies_Daily]

6. BOOM!!

[Pastiche423]

7. Bravo!

"If you adopt a strategy of not just preemptive strike but also preemptive war, you own the aftermath.


Welcome to Vietnam, Mr. President. Sorry you didn’t go when you had the chance."

by Max cleland

[thebigidea]

9. zing

the moment I saw the stupid aircraft stunt, I knew it would be used against him.

OVER.
and over.
and over again.

it goes down in the history books: AWOL plays dressup.

[nolabels]

10. To me it looks like it will be worse

There was not umpteen backdrop of years history of anglo invasions in Nam. Write me off as some America hater or something, this shit started way before there ever was an America. Ever watch a football game when the pocket colapses and there is no where to run. Yea, you say whatever, so do I.

Think about how it feels when you get really angry, this is the role the agressor takes up. Do you really think there is somobody in * cadre of chickenhawks to motivate the troops that way. It's not going too well, and I cannot see why it will get any better.

http://www.antiwar.com/
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/deliso87.html

Inside America's 'Colossal Blunder': Scott Taylor Reports from Iraq
by Christopher Deliso
September 30, 2003

Scott Taylor is Canada's top war reporter and publisher of Esprit de Corps, a monthly magazine devoted to the Canadian military. Over the past decade, he has penned numerous inside reports from the Balkans and Iraq – in the process often challenging the conventional wisdom and biases of mass media reports. Two of Scott's books – Inat, and Diary of an Uncivil War – present the untold stories of the wars in Kosovo and Macedonia, based on his eyewitness experiences.

Scott has just returned from his third trip this year to Iraq. As usual, his down-to-earth testimony offers Antiwar.com readers a compelling alternative to the anaesthetized "official" version of events on the ground.

Chris Deliso: Scott, you've just returned from yet another sojourn into Iraq. We're all abundantly aware that the situation is rough. Can you tell us, just how chaotic is it now in Iraq?

Scott Taylor: It is probably more dangerous now than at any time since US President Bush declared the war to be over. Although the looting has subsided, crime remains rampant, and the whole country is slowly slipping into a dangerous pattern of factional violence. The terror attacks and ambushes against US troops are almost completely random, so even when it seems quiet in a particular sector, you can never really let your guard down.

CD: American efforts to win hearts and minds have been stymied by factors like erratic electricity and crumbling services, which can radicalize normally docile urbanites. What is everyday life like for the Iraqis these days?

ST: There is still a curfew in place throughout Iraq which prohibits movement between 23:00 and 05:00 every night. This has meant a tremendous cultural change for the Iraqis who are used to taking afternoon naps in the heat of the day and then having late night meals in restaurants. The power situation remains rather erratic, with most households only receiving electricity about 4 hours a day. However, these blackouts have long been a part of the Iraqi daily routine, ever since the first Gulf War in 1991, so almost everyone now has access to a generator or some sort of backup system. The lack of regular utilities is probably more of a hardship for the foreigners, who aren't used to having to rough it for a few hours every day.

(snip)

[sistersofmercy]

11. Will someone please post, my security settings won't allow me...

to view.

[protect freedom impeach bush now]

13. you must have Adobe to open pdf

http://www.workingforchange.com/


www.WorkingAssets.com/quagmire

[Qutzupalotl]

17. text of ad

Welcome to Vietnam, Mr. President.
Sorry you didn’t go when you had the chance.

The president of the United States decides to go
to war against a nation led by a brutal dictator
supported by one-party rule. That dictator has
made war on his neighbors. The president
decides this is a threat to the United States.
In his campaign for president he gives no
indication of wanting to go to war. In fact, he
decries the overextension of American military
might and says other nations must do more.
However, unbeknownst to the American public,
the president’s own Pentagon advisers have
already cooked up a plan to go to war. All they
are looking for is an excuse.

Based on faulty intelligence, cherry-picked
information is fed to Congress and the American
people.The president goes on national television
to make the case for war, using as part of the
rationale an incident that never happened.
Congress buys the bait — hook, line and sinker
— and passes a resolution giving the president
the authority to use “all necessary means” to
prosecute the war.

The war is started with an air and ground
attack. Initially there is optimism. The president
says we are winning. The cocky, self-assured secretary
of defense says we are winning. As a matter
of fact, the secretary of defense promises the
troops will be home soon.

However, the truth on the ground that the
soldiers face in the war is different than the political
policy that sent them there. They face
increased opposition from a determined enemy.
They are surprised by terrorist attacks, village
assassinations, increasing casualties and growing
anti-American sentiment. They find themselves
bogged down in a guerrilla land war, unable to
move forward and unable to disengage because
there are no allies to turn the war over to.

There is no plan B. There is no exit strategy.
Military morale declines. The president’s popularity
sinks and the American people are increasingly
frustrated by the cost of blood and treasure
poured into a never-ending war.

Sound familiar? It does to me.

The president was Lyndon Johnson. The
cocky, self-assured secretary of defense was
Robert McNamara. The congressional resolution
was the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. The war
was the war that I, U.S. Sens. John Kerry, Chuck
Hagel and John McCain and 3 V million other
Americans of our generation were caught up in. It
was the scene of America’s longest war. It was
also the locale of the most frustrating outcome
of any war this nation has ever fought.

Unfortunately, the people who drove the
engine to get into the war in Iraq never served in
Vietnam. Not the president. Not the vice president.
Not the secretary of defense. Not the
deputy secretary of defense. Too bad. They could
have learned some lessons:
• Don’t underestimate the enemy. The enemy
always has one option you cannot control. He
always has the option to die. This is especially
true if you are dealing with true believers and
guerillas fighting for their version of reality,
whether political or religious. They are what Tom
Friedman of The New York Times calls the “non-deterrables.”
If those non-deterrables are
already in their country, they will be able to wait
you out until you go home.
• If the enemy adopts a “hit-and-run” strategy
designed to inflict maximum casualties on you,
you may win every battle, but (as Walter
Lippman once said about Vietnam) you can’t win
the war.
• If you adopt a strategy of not just preemptive
strike but also preemptive war, you own the
aftermath. You better plan for it. You better have
an exit strategy because you cannot stay there
indefinitely unless you make it the 51 st state.
• If you do stay an extended period of time, you
then become an occupier, not a liberator. That
feeds the enemy against you.
• If you adopt the strategy of preemptive war,
your intelligence must be not just “darn good,” as
the president has said; it must be “bulletproof,”as
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claimed the
administration’s was against Saddam Hussein.
Anything short of that saps credibility.
• If you want to know what is really going on in
the war, ask the troops on the ground, not the
policy-makers in Washington.
• In a democracy, instead of truth being the first
casualty in war, it should be the first cause of
war. It is the only way the Congress and the
American people can cope with getting through
it. As credibility is strained, support for the
war and support for the troops go downhill.
Continued loss of credibility drains troop morale,
the media become more suspicious, the public
becomes more incredulous and Congress is
reduced to hearings and investigations.

Instead of learning the lessons of Vietnam,
where all of the above happened, the president,
the vice president, the secretary of defense and
the deputy secretary of defense have gotten this
country into a disaster in the desert.

They attacked a country that had not
attacked us. They did so on intelligence that was
faulty, misrepresented and highly questionable.

A key piece of that intelligence was an outright
lie that the White House put into the president’s
State of the Union speech. These officials
have overextended the American military,
including the National Guard and the Reserve,
and have expanded the U.S. Army to the breaking
point.

A quarter of a million troops are committed
to the Iraq war theater, most of them bogged
down in Baghdad. Morale is declining and casualties
continue to increase.

In addition to the human cost, the war in
dollars costs $1 billion a week, adding to the additional
burden of an already depressed economy.
The president has declared “major combat
over” and sent a message to every terrorist,
“Bring them on.” As a result, he has lost more
people in his war than his father did in his and
there is no end in sight.

Military commanders are left with extended
tours of duty for servicemen and women who
were told long ago they were going home.We are
keeping American forces on the ground, where
they have become sitting ducks in a shooting
gallery for every terrorist in the Middle East.

Welcome to Vietnam, Mr. President. Sorry
you didn’t go when you had the chance.

— by Max Cleland

Former U.S. Senator Max Cleland volunteered for
duty in Vietnam where he lost both of his legs and
his right arm in a grenade explosion. He headed the
Veterans Administration in the Carter administration
and was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1996. In
2002, Cleland lost his bid for reelection when his
opponent ran attack ads that questioned his patriotism
and featured photos of Osama bin Laden and
Saddam Hussein. He has received numerous awards
for his bravery and service including the military’s
Silver Star for Gallantry in Action. When the Reserve
Officers’ Association named Cleland its “Minute Man
of the Year” for his work in the Senate, he joined past
Presidents Bush, Reagan and Ford in receiving the
association’s highest honor. Currently, Max Cleland is
a distinguished adjunct professor at American
University’s Washington Semester Program.

This commentary first appeared in the Atlanta
Journal-Constitution.

Sponsored by www.WorkingAssets.com
Please share this commentary with your friends and neighbors and post it where others can read it. Visit www.WorkingAssets.com/quagmire to download and print this poster, or to e-mail it to a friend.

Edit: hyphenation.

[sistersofmercy]

18. THANK YOU! Wow! BRAVO, Max Cleland!

[Dr Fate]

12. Proud to have met and worked hard for Senator Cleland...

He makes me swell up with pride- a great man...

[frank frankly]

14. this beauty will be going up everywhere in pittsburgh

working on it as we speak

[nostamj]

15. KICK!!! MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST SEE

MUST forward!

MUST SEE!

[lolly]

16. Fell in Love w/this When I first saw it . . .

That's why I put it in my sig line.

The only downside? Why did someone have to PAY to get this in NYT?

Every paper in America should have had this leading their Sunday edition op/ed section .

[Missy Vixen]

20. Beautiful

Thank you, Mr. Cleland, you are a hero.

Julie

[NNN0LHI]

21. That is a great ad. Thanks for posting it n/t

[NNN0LHI]

22. kick

[Mandate My Ass]

23. Go, Miracle Max

The sock puppet in full regalia! :puke:

[Merlin]

24. God Bless Max Cleland -- and Working Assets (Ben Cohen)

Max is a great man.

Anybody know why he isn't running again? I can't believe GA voters aren't ashamed at what they did to him.

[gristy]

25. Great ad. Great text.

To be authored by Max Cleland (so many do not know his story) makes it a home run.

I see chimpy's approval rating below 40% before the end of October.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

26. A thing of beauty!

Proud to belong to Working Assets and damn proud of Max Clelend -- another one who was done in by the BBV group. Sonovabitches.

[nolabels]

27. People say this Con or that Con should be made to resign for this.....

or that. That it is his fault or her fault, this is balderdash. They should all be kept together, let them cover for each others ass.

Hanging together has it's benefits.

I was once critical of Max Cleland for voting the way he did. I thought how a man that has been through such hell could have done such a thing. I guess we are getting our answers. There could be things wrong with giving someone your trust to do the correct thing (he did that). Maybe some would call it foolish. I think it was much more of having to have already been close to it and knowing what it is.

This is guy that already has paid a big price, and he owned all the rope he gave out. This was no small feat, to trust and be betrayed many times over, then to be able to come back to ask why. Those guys over there, with all that gear, that have U.S._______ plastered all over it, have a very difficult job now. They too may want to thank * when and if they get to come home.

[OneBlueSky]

28. Max Cleland's revenge . . .

that'll teach 'em to question the patriotism of a triple amputee and then go ahead and steal his Senate seat . . . Go Max!!! . . .