Vietnam's ghost hovers over Iraq war

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N15535082.htm

LOS ANGELES, April 15 (Reuters) - U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy needed only one word in a speech the other day to add fuel to a burning national debate: Vietnam.

While Americans tried to shake off days of fierce guerrilla attacks in Iraq and wondered whether their leaders have detoured into a quagmire, the last surviving Kennedy brother tapped into a flood of painful memories by calling the U.S. occupation of Iraq "George Bush's Vietnam."

With the resistance to occupation in Iraq intensifying, with names like Najaf and Falluja becoming as familiar as Danang and Hue, Vietnam has once again become the ghost hovering over the American political landscape -- a decade-long war fought among a hostile population that cost 58,000 Americans lives and those of two million Vietnamese.

The questions are starkly simple: has American blundered into another "war of choice" it will not be able to win or get out of quickly? Will this war stir the street demonstration and stark divisions that Vietnam did? Will it send one party packing into the political wilderness come Election Day in November?

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[skooooo]

1. the political wilderness

Will it send one party packing into the political wilderness come Election Day in November?

Oh hell yeah!