[NYTr] Iraq and the Ghost of Vietnam, Courtesy of George W Bush!

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Channel 4 News - Snowmail (UK) - Aug 22, 2007
http://www.channel4.com


IRAQ AND THE GHOST OF VIETNAM

As support in the States for the war in Iraq contrinues to sag,
President Bush has embarked on a strategy of seeking to reframe the
debate. And today that's brought an interesting and surprising turn -
the President has invoked the ghost of Vietnam to pursude the American
people not to desert him now.

In a speech to a former soldiers group - the veterans of refugees and
boat people and victims of the killing fields - he says withdrawal from
Iraq would weaken America, and to support his argument he quotes none
other than Osama Bin Laden about how the American people turned on
their government's policy in Vietnam. In other words - don't do what
al-Qaida want you to do, and turn on the government's policy.

So the President is now invoking the foreign policy nightmare that he
had tried to keep as far away from people's minds as possible. The act
of a desperate man? It came hours after he successfully destabilised
and irritated in equal measure Iraq's Prime Minister Maliki. The
President had forcefully criticised Mr Maliki's leadership and seemed
to suggest the Iraqi people would change their regime if the problems
continued. By this afternoon it was back to "Maliki's a good guy and we
support him." But the damage is already done.

The fight for Iraq: http://tinyurl.com/2mlpgx  
(VIDEO LINK ALSO HERE)

Bush compares Iraq to Vietnam

By Sarah Smith

The US president warns that early US withdrawl from Iraq could lead to
the sort of chaos that followed the Vietnam war.

"At their core they are all ideological struggles." So said President
Bush today, comparing the war in Iraq to Vietnam as he warned that any
early withdrawal from the country would lead to the sort of chaos he
said claimed "millions of innocent citizens" after the US left Vietnam
three decades ago.

The speech, to thousands of US war vets in Missouri, is the latest in
an aggressive campaign by the US administration to convince the
American public to stay the course in Iraq. It comes ahead of a crucial
progress report on the surge in Baghdad, due in less than three weeks.

But by envoking the spectre of Vietnam, seen by most as a defeat for
the United States, the president has started a painful debate.

A room full of militray veterans gave President Bush a rare sympathetic
audience as he tried out a new justification for staying the course in
Iraq.

But to many, Vietnam means quagmire and defeat, so Bush has always
before rejected comparsion with a war pursued in the face of public
opposition until the US was forced to leave.

It was a mistake that must not be repeated today, he says

One legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was
paid by millions of innocent citizens, whose agonies would add to our
vocabulary new terms like "boat people" and "killing fields".

To many, Vietnam means quagmire and defeat, so Bush has always
before rejected comparsion with that war.

Previous conflicts had been just as unpopular, the president said, but
in South Korea and Japan US military intervention DID produce stable,
friendly democracies, where critics had said it could not be done.

Tomorrow a $15m TV campaign will try to persude the American people to
support the troops and their president, and that it is not the time to
quit.

It is all part of major fightback from the White House. Another speech
next week will say it is vital for the whole of the Middle East that US
troops stay in Iraq.

The president has three weeks to make the case before General Petraeus
comes to Washington to report to Congress on progress in Iraq - and it
won't all be good news

Iraqi premier Nouri al-Maliki knows he will get a lot of the blame for
lack of political progess. He was furious that President Bush seemed to
suggest yesterday that he'd lost American support. He won't be much
cheered by being called a good guy today.