Nixon's Vietnam mirrored the contradictions in Bush's Iraq speech

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Nixon explained in his 'Silent Majority' speech that North Vietnam, with the logistical support of communist China and the Soviet Union, had a campaign to impose a communist government on South Vietnam by instigating and supporting a revolution.

Nixon:

"In response to the request of the Government of South Vietnam, President Eisenhower sent economic aid and military equipment to assist the people of South Vietnam in their efforts to prevent a communist takeover. Seven years ago, President Kennedy sent 16,000 military personnel to Vietnam as combat advisers. Four years ago, President Johnson sent American combat forces to South Vietnam."

"For the South Vietnamese, our precipitate withdrawal would inevitably allow the Communists to repeat the massacres which followed their takeover in the North 15 years before."

Nixon's lofty justifications for his continued involvement collapsed under the reality of a perpetual war fueled by our very presence in Vietnam which only served to harden resistance to the U.S. and any forces allied with us. At the end of decades of war, and thousands of American lives sacrificed, North Vietnamese forces took Saigon in 1975. Communist forces occupied the South, renaming Saigon Ho Chi Minh City.

Bush has repeatedly shifted his justification for his invasion of Iraq and our continuing occupation there from WMD's, to defense of democracy in the region, to this weak speech restating his past lies linking our involvement there to the broader 'war on terror'.

"Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war." Bush said last night in his Iraq speech at Fort Bragg.

"Our mission in Iraq is clear." he said. "We're hunting down the terrorists. We're helping Iraqis build a free nation that is an ally in the war on terror. We're advancing freedom in the broader Middle East. We are removing a source of violence and instability . . ."

However, according to our own military and intelligence operatives, our presence in Iraq is having the effect of creating more enemies and resistance to the U.S. than can be countered by any new recruits or any new Iraqi government intuitive sponsored or propped up by our heavy-handed military forces and their war of aggression against all who would resist our occupying army. Our oppressive posture has pushed the citizens of this once sovereign nation to a forced expression of their nationalism in defense of basic prerogatives of liberty and self-determination, which our false authority disregards as threats to our consolidation of power.

Yet, Bush pushes on, mesmerized by his own hypocritical rhetoric about freedom and democracy. It's more than clear to all in the Middle East that these lofty ideals stated by Bush mask the bloody reality that the U.S., under his leadership, has become the type of oppressor that all the suffering people around the world fear. The random exercise of our military strength and destructive power will not serve as a deterrent to these rouge, radical terrorist organizations who claim no permanent base of operations. The wanton, collateral bombing and killing has undoubtedly alienated any fringe of moderates who might have joined in a unified effort of regime change which respects our own democratic values of justice and due process.

Before the imposition of sanctions in the '80's, and before the war, Iraq boasted the region's best schools and hospitals, and enjoyed the smallest gap between the rich and poor of any of its neighbors. Also, Iraq's educated class ranked among the region's best.

Six weeks of intensive bombing reduced Iraq to what was described as a pre-industrial state. Unemployment soared and the black market flourished, resulting in a widening of the gap between the impoverished majority and those few who managed to cling to wealth.

Before sanctions were imposed, ninety percent of Iraq's income came from oil exports. Once sanctions restricted oil sales, lack of basic food and medicine soon reached catastrophic levels. The country's water, electrical, and oil systems, and other infrastructure were devastated in the bombing campaign.

Human Rights Watch documented the effects of the first U.S. aggression against Iraq and found that more than 500 civilian buildings and homes were targeted and destroyed with no apparent connection to any threat to the U.S. or its allies. Middle East Watch, in a more damning account, tells of some 9,000 homes, housing some 72,000 people, that had been destroyed or badly damaged during the bombing. Some 2,500 of the buildings reported destroyed were in Baghdad and another 1,900 in Basra.

Now, in this Bush's aggression, our military has participated in the killing of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis, all in the name of their liberation. Folks complain about the comparisons here and elsewhere to Hitler and other notorious, mass murdering dictators, but how far does Bush have to go to share their revolting legacies? His regime and its minions have achieved control of all branches of government and have set about the work of dismantling our democracy. I don't think we should have to wait for a list of atrocities committed by Bush matching those of the Nazis in the Holocaust to lump him in with the rest of history's slime who created, caused, or were indifferent to the suffering of those who were pawns in their manufactured mandates to conquer.

The Bush's routs of Saddam may have made them appear to be warrior kings. But in the context of their overwhelming domination of the inept Saddam and the hapless Iraqi army, they more resemble Don Quixote. In the classic tale of the ideal vs. the real, Quixote battles windmills that appear to be giants, and sheep that look to him like armies. He believes himself the victor, comes to his senses, only to be trapped by his delusion; forced to play the conquering hero.

That's the image I have of Bush. He must know that he's failed miserably in Iraq, but he can't seem to come to grips with the catastrophe he has created. Bush, in his Iraq speech, quoted General John Vines who said: "We either deal with terrorism and this extremism abroad, or we deal with it when it comes to us."

That's the common mantra coming from the White House. Vice President Cheney cautioned in a speech before the Heritage Foundation: "We are fighting this evil in Iraq so that we do not have to fight it in our own cities."

Sadly, American soldiers also serve as targets in Iraq, and their lives are no less important than ours here in the states. Inviting attacks on Americans overseas is an amazing retreat from the peaceful influence of a great nation of justice; humbled by bloody, devastating wars; and witnessed to the power of liberty, and to the freedom inherent in the constitution we wisely defend with our peaceful acts of mercy, charity, and tolerance.

What is the value in using Iraq as a terror magnet? It has resulted in daily attacks on our soldiers by an Iraqi resistance - possibly aided by some outside terror network; likely no more than remnants of the Republican Guard or the like.

What is it about our operation in Iraq that would support the argument that we won't have to fight them (terrorists) on our shores? Most observers predict another devastating attack in the U.S. is inevitable if not imminent. Further, by likening Iraq to the worldwide Muslim terror offensive the president does what Hussein could not; he binds Iraqis to the Muslim extremists. He practically invites them to join the battle there and ally with the forces that threaten our soldiers daily.

"Peace," Herman Wouk wrote, "if it ever exists, will not be based on the fear of war, but on the love of peace. It will not be the abstaining from an act but the coming of a state of mind." All else that we pursue should be a means to that peace; and a wholesale rejection of violent postures which just invite more violence.

Bush's aggression resigns the nation to a perpetual global threat against the United States and our interests. His speech was one more affirmation of a megalomaniac's determination to further his own ambition for greed and power at the expense of the safety, security, and well-being of our country and our citizens. He may well have established his own infamous moniker as a result of his arrogant, vain bungling. Like Nixon, Bush is saddled forever with the deaths of those who got caught up in the horror of his perversely validating war, leaving the rest of us to travel the road to hell.

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