Telegraph Covers The Draft-Dodger-In-Chief In Vietnam

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Bush goes to Vietnam, four decades after dodging draft

By Sebastien Berger in Hanoi
Last Updated: 2:22am GMT 17/11/2006

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Amid an intensifying discussion at home about the war, Mr Bush will give the debate another boost by walking among Vietnam War relics and touring of the Joint PoW-MIA Accounting Command. He will be briefed by staff on efforts to locate or account for nearly 1,800 US service members still missing.

On Monday he will see Saigon – now Ho Chi Minh City – once the power base of the US-backed southern Vietnamese government. The president and his secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, have been at pains to deny comparisons between Vietnam and Iraq, where American troops are struggling to contain an insurgency, although Mr Bush admitted last month that there were links in terms of US public opinion turning negative.

One American veteran now living in Vietnam said comparisons were still valid. Chuck Searcy, 62, head of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund's operations, said: "The similarities have less to do with the Vietnamese and the Iraqis than with America's approach to both situations. It's unavoidable that Iraq is going to be a huge reference point in the future for the US."

Mr Bush arrives in Vietnam nearly four decades after avoiding the draft by joining the Texas Air National Guard, leading to controversy years later when he began his push for the White House.

By contrast, John McCain, his rival for the Republican nomination in 2000 and now his potential successor, was flying a Skyhawk bomber over Hanoi in 1967 when he was shot down and parachuted into the Truc Bach lake, both his arms and one leg broken.

The remains of the prison are a museum, with Sen McCain's flying suit a prized exhibit. Mr Bush, it is understood, will not be visiting.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/17/wuspols17.xml



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[muntrv]

1. Jay Leno said Bush had to ask John Kerry for directions.

[wicket]

2. Excellent!

K & R

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[sweetladybug]

3. The chicken sh-t finally made it to Vietnam. Just 30 or 40 yrs to late

While my husband had his life on the line in Vietnam, Chicken Little was hiding from his duties in the Texas National guard. I quess Bush was just too busy getting drunk and high than to serve his country.

[wicket]

4. kick

:kick: