Turnabout -- Vietnam seems to be the new RW talking point

[Armstead]

In a bit of turnabout, more and more conservatives are comparing the situation in Iraq to Vietnam.

But, of course, they've put their own twist on it. "We were winning militarily in Vietnam, but lost because the anti-war movement forced our leaders to back out. We should not allow that to be repeated in Iraq."

It's so consistent that it must of come off the talking points from Message Central.

They apparently forget something. It was NOT the anti-war movement that lost Vietnam. There was NEVER a good time to leave VietNam. 1967 was just as bad timing as 1971. All we did by staying in a losing situation as a military occupation was prolong the inevitable, and make the ultimate outcome worse -- not better.

We "stayed the course" for a decade, and on a much larger and more destructive scale than Iraq. At its worst, the monthly death tolls was almost equivalent to the total death toll in Iraq.

There are many unknowns in Iraq. It's possible, IMO, to still get a positive outcome, if we stop trying to impose what we want, rather than something that springs from their own soil.

But if we get a bad outcome it won't be because the "anti-war left" forced a premature pullout. It's because we will have made the same mistake we made in Vietnam, of digging faster and deeper to try and get out of a hole. All the critics of the war are saying at this point is that the answer is to start climbing out of the hole instead of digging deeper.

[DemoTex]

1. My visual rebuttal to RW talking point ...

[Mr Rabble]

11. That works.

[CitrusLib]

2. Most freepers who bring up Vietnam to me have absolutely zero

knowledge of the history of the conflict and probably couldn't point to Vietnam on a map.

Thank God for Barbara Tuchman's March to Folly. Gave me loads to throw back in their smug Repug faces.

[PsN2Wind]

3. On PBS News hour

that creep Gaffney said that because of people like her we didn't win in VietNam, or words to that effect. Actually, we lost in VietNam because chickenhawks like Gaffney didn't enlist and replace some draftee that , as Rumsfeld stated, added no value to the effort there. Being born in 1953, he was prime VietNam material but for some reason didn't go. You could add the total time that most of these assholes spent in VietNam and it would be less than Nancy Sinatra.

[Lexingtonian]

4. You're forgetting

that for the Right, external enemies are always ultimately far less important than internal ones.

You/we have always been their most important enemy. Trying to rationalize their behavior as something other than that is just engaging in denial. That's how they are, that's who they are at bottom. They're always parasites and the Living Dead; they simply hate the people who are truly Alive for having real Life. A story as old as Cain and Abel.

[TahitiNut]

5. As more realize that Iraq is ethically far worse than Viet Nam ...

... it's not surprising to me that the right-wing would seek to downplay Iraq by likening it to Viet Nam -- if only to do an encore on "Americans defeated America in Viet Nam" and point fingers of blame anywhere but at who's in power.

"'far worse' you say, TahitiNut? What're you smoking?" some would ask. While there's no question that the war Viet Nam was, in large part, exacerbated by the Gulf of Tonkin lie, there's also no question that Iraq is based on a Fraud that is to Tonkin as Everest is to Gobbler's Knob. The Iraq Fraud is unparalleled in American History. In Viet Nam, we faced organized, openly state-supported military and paramilitary forces -- yet we desisted in invading North Viet Nam. Further, we at least gave the pretense of 'respecting' Laos's and Cambodia's sovereignty. (Some would claim those were mistakes. Different discussion.) Well, we're Through The Looking Glass, Alice ... and the Mad Hatters have taken control.

[Tamyrlin79]

6. That is true...

In Vietnam, we at least had legitimate reasons for being there to start with, before everything escalated: helping our allies, the French, if I recall correctly.

The legitimacy of our presence this time is in doubt, and that is, ultimately, what Cindy Sheehan is questioning by asking what noble cause her son died for. The Legitimacy of the war is the only "rubber glove" that can allow the president to keep his hands clean of the blood spilt, and a war based and fought on lies cannot be considered legitimate by any measure. So, basically, by asking such a question she is accusing the president of murder. That's why this is such news, I think.

[Lowell]

7. Anti War Protestors had nothing

to do with us loosing in Vietnam. That war was doomed from the very beginning, just like Iraq. The only real difference is that the Vietnamese asked for our help, we overthrew the government of Iraq and invaded their country.

I hear from other Vietnam vets the old saw, "what happened? We were winning when I left." To this all I can ever muster is BULLSHIT. My whole tour was one long ass kicking contest and it was our asses taking the punishment.

We will end up in a situation much like the post Vietnam era. People not trusting the government and a sworn enemy of another country. It is only now, after all these years, that the wounds of Vietnam are beginning to heal. Thirty years from now we will still be dealing with the fallout from this Iraqi excursion.

[TahitiNut]

10. We did EVERYTHING we were asked to do in Viet Nam.

I really have little patience left any more when people say we "lost" in Viet Nam. "Lost" what? The fact of the matter is that EVERYONE "lost" in Viet Nam. It wasn't some fucking game where one team "wins" and the other team "loses" and they go home to play again next week. I'm tired of the same old insanity about war as some game. It's not. All the guys in Viet Nam did everything asked of them and more. We didn't "lose" - we were thrown away! Exploited and discarded like consumer waste in some immoral landfill.

The "loss" was a loss of our souls. The "loss" was a loss of our values. The "loss" was in doing it at all. Everyone lost. Nobody won. And we're doing it again and again because we never fucking LEARNED! God damn Bush and his soulless cabal! God damn the money-grubbers! God damn the political 'game players'! Insanity is never a "win." Corruption is never a "win." For anyone!

[zbdent]

8. Wait a minute - don't they normally use the tactic of numbers of

KIAs under Johnson vs KIAs under Nixon to show that VietNam was worse earlier?

:eyes:

[Armstead]

9. It was bad all along

One death for a bad cause is one too many. Was true in Vietnam and is true in Iraq.