* admits Iraq"could be"compared to Tet offensive;timed to affect elections

[dajoki]

Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/bush-concedes-iraqi-echoes-of-vietnam-war/2006/10/19/1160851070576.html

Bush concedes Iraqi echoes of Vietnam War
Michael Fletcher and Peter Baker in Greensboro, North Carolina


THE US President, George Bush, has admitted for the first time that the surge of violence in Iraq "could be" compared to the bloody Tet offensive that took place during the Vietnam War.

Until now Mr Bush has strongly resisted comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam, but with US casualties continuing to mount - at least 13 soldiers were killed in the two days from Tuesday - he agreed with an interviewer's analogy on Wednesday, but added that he thought the increase in attacks was timed to affect next month's congressional elections.

The insurgents' goal was to force the US to lose its will to continue in Iraq, Mr Bush said.

"My gut tells me that they have all along been trying to inflict enough damage that we'd leave," he told American ABC television.

"And the leaders of al-Qaeda have made that very clear. They believe that if they can create enough chaos, the American people will grow sick and tired of the Iraqi effort and will cause Government to withdraw."

[leftchick]

1. Does he even know what Tet was?

I highly doubt it, that is why he agreed with it. In 1968 he was all coked up and jack Daniels soaked to even know what fucking year it was.

[dajoki]

5. You could say the same for 1988 n/t

[jab105]

15. His answer shows that he had NO CLUE what the Tet Offensive was...

the bike shop I was at had FoxNews running, "explaining" how brilliant Bush's answer was...local right wing was saying the same thing...but he really had no clue...

[maxsolomon]

2. "My gut tells me...

"My gut tells me that they have all along been trying to inflict enough damage that we'd leave,"

my gut tells me you aren't even the apprentice to the master of the obvious.

read sun tzu instead of 3 fucking george washington biographies, you narcissist.

[dajoki]

6. He claimed to have read 3 george washington biographies...

I don't believe him, unless Laura read them to him.

[InternalDialogue]

3. Surge in violence timed to affect elections?

Well, then what was last month's surge in violence timed to affect? And the month before? And the month before that? I suppose next month's surge will be timed to affect... Thanksgiving?

[patrice]

4. He's also speaking "subliminally" to all of those folks who'd like

to see us make up for loosing in Viet Nam. Too bad for Iraq as far they're concerned as long as we proove whatever to ourselves.

[kenny blankenship]

7. If the American people have any sense they will take the hint and go

Tet shattered the gov't-media illusion that we were winning in Vietnam, and that final victory was someplace just around the corner. If the gov't had been telling the truth in all the things it said about how it was reducing the enemy, a massive "uprising" style attack happening all over the country simultaneously, as Tet was, wouldn't have been possible. The implication was clear, not only had the gov't and military been lying to the American people, but the war which had already dragged on for four years, would just go on and on. Unfortunately, Nixon suckered America with his promise of a rapid peace but somehow without sacrificing honor in a loss. The simple fact that he promised to seek peace, though, during the highpoint of the conflict, shows that America was sick of the war and wanted out. Through Nixon's dishonesty, billing himself as the peace maker who would get us out somehow without the shame of a loss, the Vietnam War would drag on five more years before we finally abandoned the doomed effort. As a consequence for our country's refusal to deal with reality as it was, instead how we wished it was, twice as many Americans would die in the conflict. The outcome was no better than withdrawal in 1968 and no shame was avoided. That fatal delay, the interval between seeing reality and acting on it, must not be repeated in Iraq.

Just because you think someone is trying to send you a message, and you don't like the message and you don't like the sender, doesn't mean you shouldn't consider the message. Those dead Americans are really dead, and when the insurgents turn their guns on us instead of each other they can do this to us, month in and month out. Considering that the Shia militia aren't involved today, and they number in the hundreds of thousands, we'd do well to think about what this message they're sending us this month says about what they can do to us if ALL of them, Shia and Sunni, come at us at once. And we'll have to leave anyway sooner or later. We cannot think of sustaining this madness another 4 years, and if we listen to Bushler we'll be there with no way out forever.

[dajoki]

9. What you say about Nixon is correct, but...

LBJ was still in office during Tet.

[kenny blankenship]

11. I know that.

[Auntie Bush]

8. Will someone please tell bush* to stop talking out of

the entrance to his rectum. "My gut tells me" Stop listening to your gut, you fool, and use your brains, eyes and ears. Someone needs to pop that bubble!

[dajoki]

10. I agree, but...

[leftchick]

12. This is the way Juan Cole interprets the idiot's statement.....

Interesting....

<snip>

Bush's position is that things are going just great in Iraq, and that a few trouble-makers have managed to hijack the US media with a small number of limited bombings and other sabotage, and have made it look like the US isn't making progress. Bush believes that the media and Americans are falling for a get-up job. So he is is trying to say to the American public that just as the Tet offensive was a military defeat for the Viet Cong but a propaganda defeat for Washington, so the October offensive of the Sunni Arab guerrillas is so much smoke and mirrors, a mere propaganda stunt with no substantive importance for Iraq.

But in fact, the current guerrilla war against US troops and the new Iraqi government isn't at all like the Tet offensive. It is deadly serious. Because the US military is not defeating the guerrillas militarily any more. They have succeeded in provoking an unconventional, hot civil war, which was their "poison pill" strategy for getting the US out. The US has alienated the Sunni Arab population decisively. In summer of 2003, only 14 percent of them supported violent attacks on US troops. In a recent poll, 70 percent supported such attacks. And, the guerrilla movement is well-heeled, well-trained, and adaptive. Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN for Wednesday presented videotape showing well-trained snipers shooting down US troops in Baghdad. The guerrilla war is real, not just a political show put on to weaken the will of the fickle American public.

What is delicious is that the general American public does not hold the view of the Vietnam War popular among far-right politicians like Bush, and so no one but the true believers will catch his drift here. In fact, most Americans will assume that Bush has admitted that we are in an unwinnable quagmire in Iraq, just as in Vietnam. And the Iraq=Vietnam identification is likely to stick. Of all his misstatements and malapropisms over the years, any one of which would have robbed most people of credibility or made them a laughing-stock, it is ironic that this miscalculation, uttered coolly and with no stutter, may have been his biggest gaffe of all.

http://www.juancole.com/

[dajoki]

14. The last sentence is perfect!!

[ShortnFiery]

13. I think Dear Leader needs to set the example ...

Have the rich elites who are presently baby sitting Jenna in Panama --> SOBER her ass up and then ship her to Iraq to serve with an Army Military Police (MP) company in the heart of Baghdad. :shrug:

SHOW US you are willing to pay a price, you PHONY wannabe dictator!?! :puke: