In Some Ways It is Vietnam Again (The Liberals Still Have Not Learned)
by Michael P. Tremoglie | View comments |
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The calls for an early departure from Iraq echo similar statements from the media during the Vietnam War. A December 2005 article from the Atlantic Monthly, written by Nir Rosen, has been circulating the antiwar/antiBush websites as the definitive justification for leaving Iraq now. According to a MoveOn.org email, Rosen’s exegesis “ is a well-reasoned response to the Bush administration.” Rosen, who is a Fellow of the New America Foundation, claims: "At some point — whether sooner or later — U.S. troops will leave Iraq. I have spent much of the occupation reporting from Baghdad, Kirkuk, Mosul, Fallujah, and elsewhere in the country, and I can tell you that a growing majority of Iraqis would like it to be sooner."
This is certainly plausible. President Bush said as much some time ago when he mentioned during a press conference that no one likes to be occupied. Nir Rosen’s penchant for stating the obvious causes one to question his sagacity. Rosen is, according to the New America Foundation bio, “a journalist who has written extensively on the American presence in Afghanistan and Iraq. Mr. Rosen spent more than a year in post-war Iraq reporting on the American occupation, the relationship between Americans and Iraqis, the development of post-war Iraqi religious and political movements, and inter-ethnic and sectarian relations. He also focused his reporting and research on the origins and development of Islamist resistance, insurgence, and terror organizations. While in Afghanistan, Mr. Rosen covered the elections and studied the differences between the American presence in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
Certainly, his credentials indicate he would be someone who could make astute observations about the situation in Iraq — then again, maybe not. The most revealing comment by Rosen is his concluding paragraph, "Iraq is a destroyed and fissiparous country. Iranians and Saudis I've spoken to worry that it might be impossible to keep Iraq from disintegrating. But they agree that the best hope of avoiding this scenario is if the United States leaves." (emphasis mine).
Now who has said this before? Who has written or said that a country — where United States troops were deployed to defend a nascent democracy — would be better off once those American troops left. One need only refer to American journalists’ commentary about Vietnam and Cambodia in the mid-1970’s. Nir Rosen’s predecessors said the same things about Southeast Asia as he is now saying about Iraq. Sydney Schanberg’s prescient commentary about the pending conquest of Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge is an excellent example of the similarity between Rosen’s fallacious reasoning about Iraq and that of the liberal mainstream media’s sophistry about Southeast Asia and the communists.
From the April 13, 1975 edition of the New York Times, as quoted by Mona Charen, in her book Useful Idiots, Schanberg wrote, "for the ordinary people of Indochina…it is difficult to imagine how their lives could be anything but better with the Americans gone." (emphasis added) Schanberg did not stop there. He shared the idea that the Khmer Rouge was comprised of some communists and mostly people who just wanted to be independent. He proclaimed that the massacre of civilians predicted by American hawks would not occur in Cambodia. Schanberg wrote (quoting from Charen’s book), "There have been unconfirmed reports of executions…none of this will bear any resemblance to the mass executions that had been predicted by Westerners." (emphasis added)
Schanberg was not alone in his prescience. Anthony Lewis, another great liberal sage of the New York Times, also said predictions of a massacre were unfounded. He wrote, according to Charen, "What future possibility could be more terrible than the reality of what is happening to Cambodia now?" Not only were the mainstream liberal media’s prognosticating about Southeast Asia appallingly mistaken, so too were liberal political heroes.
Senator Claiborne Pell — like John Kerry and John Murtha, a military veteran, and a descendant of a former Vice President of the United States — said about the Vietnamese communist atrocities, "There is some question as to how many people would actually suffer if South Vietnam came under Communist administration. The example often cited is Hue, which after having been occupied by North Vietnamese was found to have mass graves.."
Pell went on to say that these graves were not the result of Communist Vietnamese atrocities; they were do in part to American military action. All of these ideas about what would happen to people in Southeast Asia in a post-communist world are echoed by Rosen about the Iraqi insurgents and what will happen when American troops leave.
Nir Rosen’s predictions about Iraq are about as vacuous as his liberal mainstream media journalist predecessors. The liberal media’s forecasts about Vietnam and Cambodia were completely, hideously, erroneous. One would have to believe their prophecies about Iraq as represented by Rosen are just as completely, hideously, erroneous now. Rosen makes one recall what former British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan once said, "As usual the Liberals offer a mixture of sound and original ideas. Unfortunately none of the sound ideas is original and none of the original ideas is sound."
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Read more articles by Michael P. Tremoglie
At least this time we have an all volunteer and mostly professional Military to deal with. I lived the
history of SEA. Our betrayal of our friends an allies will never be forgotton.
Comment by Al of Alnot | January 12, 2006
“In Some Ways It is Vietnam Again (The Liberals Still Have Not Learned)”
This is not just “Vietnam Again”; it’s “WW-I Again”. In 1938, the Allies were so determined to avoid another World War, they would agree to anything. At the first sign of trouble, America retreated into its quintessential isolationism; women with signs reading, “Peace at Any Price” marched in its streets.
We may recall that the liberal isolationists who “have not learned” were just as against the United States’ forcing Saddam Hussein to live up to his disarmament agreements of 1991 as the Allies’ were in their failure to make Hitler live up to Germany’s disarmament agreements of 1919. (In true Farrakhanesque style, we’ve exchanged only two digits of the year.)
Now that we are in Iraq, the next logical step for the liberal isolationists who “have not learned” naturally is to agitate for America’s withdrawal.
There just doesn't seem to be anything new under the sun.
Comment by G of Sedona | January 14, 2006
Iraq was, like it or not, an independent country, which the US, in violation of written,
unwritten and moral and natural law, invaded without reason, save Bush's oedipal
problems. There was no central reason for invade it, at all - again except for the
desire of the neocons to have a non-water based presence in the central middle
east for further force projecton. The entire enterprise was sold with typical corporate
marketing, spin and lies, drumming up and playing excuse after excuse after
excuse, all driven by unfounded fears about a "war on terror" which does not
exist.
The US placed itself in harms way, supported right wing dictators, exploited
the resources of other countries for over a century, and somehow there was
not be resentment and asymetrical warfare? Ball was correct. In Vietnam,
I was there three years so shut your damned mouth unless you were there
longer and had your eyes fully open, the US only needed to declared
victory and leave! But, Nixon and Kissinger found its extension until
1975 conventient first for Nixon's 1972 re-election, just as Bush found
Iraq, a conventiently manufactured threat, to win midterm 2002 and
the 2004 elections from a population too stupid to understand the scam.
We did not lose VN. It was not ours to lose. We gave ourselves a bloody
nose, not the VN. As Napoleon said, and consonant with Occam's Razor,
"Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by
incompetence." Napoleon Bonaparte . Bonaparte also said: "In politics
stupidity is not a handicap", which in the case of this blog, quite
apparent.
Leave Iraq forthwith, now, without conditions and knowing that the
fools in charge of this watch spent blood and treasure wontonly and
foolishly because of the fear and stupidity of the People who allowed
a small clutch of ambitious and greedy people to take the reins without
some check on their recklessness and malign intent, then did nothing
about it from fear, which they spread as an excuse for anything not
unlike chicken little via the ChickenHawks.
Comment by W. Franklin | January 17, 2006
Mr. Franklin,
If I were a Marxist history professor I would give you an "A" for your diatribe. Let me expand. You've included a unique theory of a Bush "Oedipal" justification for war. Apparently "W" wanted to knock off Saddam because of sexual fellings for Barbara? You've included the esteemed intellectual Michael Moore's preposterous assertion that there is no terrorist threat and therefore no war on terror. You've implicated Nixon and Kissinger for culpability for Vietnam but make no mention of Kennedy or the escalation under LBJ. You've included the terms "corporate marketing," "exploitation of resources" and "neocon." No anti-American screed should lack these. In addition you tell detractors to keep their damn mouths shut and finish the rant with the obligatory mention of chickenhawks. Your work is not particularly original (we on the Left disdain original thinking), outside the Oedipus Theory, and its rigid adherence to "progressive" myth and nomenclature is laudable. So laudable in fact, that I'm going to recommend you for a scholarship in the John Kerry School of International Studies. Our Dean of Admissions Ramsey Clark and our Department Chair Noam Chomsky will be sending a congratulatory letter in the next few weeks.
Comment by R. Bright | January 18, 2006
In Response to the posting by "W. Franklin"
First, it is apparent from your posting that English is not your first language, so I question the validity of your comments, as you are clearly a foreign born anti-american partisan. Hey…Allah Akbar.
You present broad conclusions that say more about your borderline mental state than they say about reality.
Your harping on Bush, and the "oedipal problem" comment, are merely argumentum ad hominem. (Look it up…Ahmed). You're not going to pursuade anyone that way.
The middle-east never had the benefit of an Age of Reason, so I can understand that you have problems creating a logical argument, but keep trying. Maybe you'll eventually become a reasonable person.
What is this about "non-water based presence in the central middle east for further force projecton." And you know this how???
What are you talking about "corporate marketing…unfounded fears." Did you see the towers fall first hand??? Did you feel the ground shake? Did you know anyone killed on 9-11? So you can "shut your damned mouth" about terror.
You say "'In politics stupidity is not a handicap', which in the case of this blog, quite apparent." A prime example of self-fulfilling prophecy.
Thank God that George Bush has had the strength of character to bring the war to the middle east, and not have to fight it here!!!
Thank God that the Islamo-fascists have a venue OUTSIDE THE US to exercise their choice of suicide.
Today Iraq, tomorrow Iran!!!
PS. The wiretaps are legal.
Comment by JDGrove | January 19, 2006
I would like to thank W. Franklin for his service in Vietnam. When the people fail to believe in a just and noble cause it is because their leaders have failed them. Somewhere the leaders of this cause have failed to convince Mr. Franklin of how the outcome is right for the soul of man.
Comment by CCSmith | January 26, 2006