FROM VIETNAM to IRAQ: State of Denial

[ProSense]

FROM VIETNAM to IRAQ: State of Denial

The analogy of Iraq being another Vietnam has been uttered for years now.

For me, George W. Bush is the Republicans' Vietnam, something from which it will take decades to recover. But with the entrance of Henry Kissinger the obvious hits you in the face.

We.

Didn't.

Know... the half of it.

Woodward's Sunday column is up.

Tomorrow night he has a date with "60 Minutes". America does, too.

... The president met privately with Kissinger every couple of months, making him the most regular and frequent outside adviser to Bush on foreign affairs.

Kissinger sensed wobbliness everywhere on Iraq, and he increasingly saw the situation through the prism of the Vietnam War. For Kissinger, the overriding lesson of Vietnam is to stick it out.

In his writing, speeches and private comments, Kissinger claimed that the United States had essentially won the war in 1972, only to lose it because of the weakened resolve of the public and Congress.

In a column in The Washington Post on Aug. 12, 2005, titled "Lessons for an Exit Strategy," Kissinger wrote, "Victory over the insurgency is the only meaningful exit strategy."

He delivered the same message directly to Bush, Cheney and Hadley at the White House.

Snip...

"The president can't be talking about troop reductions as a centerpiece," Kissinger said. "You may want to reduce troops," but troop reduction should not be the objective. "This is not where you put the emphasis."

To emphasize his point, he gave Gerson a copy of a memo he had written to President Richard M. Nixon, dated Sept. 10, 1969.

"Withdrawal of U.S. troops will become like salted peanuts to the American public; the more U.S. troops come home, the more will be demanded," he wrote.

Snip..

Echoes of Vietnam ... ... ...

STATE OF DENIAL
Behind Public Optimism on Iraq, Administration Had Doubts

"Staying the course" isn't far-sighted; it's blind. Leaving our troops in the middle of a civil war isn't resolute; it's reckless. Half of the service members listed on the Vietnam Memorial Wall died after America's leaders knew our strategy would not work. It was immoral then and it would be immoral now to engage in the same delusion. -- John Kerry

[teryang]

1. Victory v. Denial, which is more plausible?

Kissinger denies his role but calls for victory, otherwise we face the possibility of emerging al qaeda states in Iraq, and Israel will be in mortal danger?

Gee, how did that happen?

[ProSense]

2. Meet the Nixon/Bush administration

THE NIXON ADMINISTRATION, 1969-74

Richard Nixon's presidency is the early testing ground for many of the men who will advise George W. Bush decades later. Nixon gives Rumsfeld his first taste of life in the executive branch -- and his first enemies. Cheney, Wolfowitz and Powell have their own firsts: Washington jobs with the era's most powerful politicians. But for Armitage in Vietnam, Washington is literally and figuratively miles away.

Snip...

Audio: Rumsfeld and Nixon: caught on tape
In 1971, Rumsfeld went to his mentor, President Nixon, for advice on his political future. Their conversation was caught on Nixon's numerous secret White House audiotapes. Click here to hear, or read, the discussion between Nixon and his young assistant.