Comments on: Please, Make Him Stop!

By: Pat

Pat — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 14:09:19 +0000

Revisionism, in particular, runs amok when it comes to the Cambodia. Bush twists this around, using it as proof of how wrong leaving was. It was our presence in Southeast Asia that pushed their population to the point that made Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot possible.

Viet Nam started for dubious reasons…the Pueblo incident was the crystal around which other reasons gelled…the domino theory, oppression of the people. It rapidly evolved into a nationalistic conflict.

Sounds a little familiar, doesn’t it? Now even the duly elected president of Iraq thumbs his fingers at us.

By: Pat

Pat — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 14:01:05 +0000

He knows that there are still people gritting their teeth about the loss…the humiliation they feel on behalf of their country after the Viet Nam war.

Bush isn’t trying to appeal to the rational. He is blowing a malevolent, silent dog whistle of sorts, except one that is heard only by extremists of his ilk, with his particular dysfunction, or a symbiotic dysfunction of their own that spells support for him.

He truly believes that if he is ruthless enough and rallies 25% into a vicious frenzy with unquestioning support for HIM, that he can do whatever he wants. That has been some sociologists estimates for the % of authoritarians in the world population.

Dangerous…this guy Bush. It’s time to reclaim reason.

By: felicity

felicity — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 22:06:34 +0000

Relax everybody. Think about this. About 4,000 Americans killed (Iraqis don’t count) in Iraq. About 55,000 Americans killed (Vietnamese don’t count) in Vietnam. We’ve got what, 51,000 more Americans who have to be killed in Iraq before we can leave? Hey, it’s historical!

By: bruce

bruce — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 16:15:49 +0000

This depresses me so much, that the only way they can justify hanging onto this war till Jan 2009 is by invoking the most divisive issue–in fact, the mother of all divisive issues–Vietnam. This is the ultimate in inflammatory and divisive political strategies, and it makes me sad for the country. I’m feeling defeated and discouraged, the assholes—and the terrorists—have won.

By: back to 101 with thee « the history blog project

back to 101 with thee « the history blog project — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 15:39:46 +0000

[...] 23, 2007 back to 101 with thee Posted by fshk under contemporary , vietnam , politics , presidents biggerbox at Mahablogpoints out that our president perhaps does not know his history. I sure hope the people who listened to his speech do. If not, this seems like a good reason to keep on blogging. [...]

By: All Spin Zone » Lessons of Vietnam Revisited

All Spin Zone » Lessons of Vietnam Revisited — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 08:26:16 +0000

[...] When word first broke that Bush would be invoking Vietnam in an upcoming speech to justify continuation of the war in Iraq, I was surprising by the response it got given this isn’t the first time Bush has alluded to that long ago conflict. But after reading through some of the speech and subsequent criticisms, I can now understand why. As one blogger observed “It’s a frontal assault on the rational mind”. [...]

By: Evelyn

Evelyn — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 04:28:24 +0000

We will always lose wars fought against other people on other people’s territory, because the other people will always outlast us. They have to. They live there, they can’t leave. They have nowhere else to go, so they will always stay and keep fighting. What else could they do? The Iraqi insurgents are accused of “slipping back into the general population.” They *are* the general population. Eventually our troops will have to come home. The Iraqis already are home. That’s why we will lose. It doesn’t take patience or even skill on their part to win. It just takes continuing to be who they are. We will never learn their language, and we will never understand their thinking. The only other possibility is to do what we did in Japan–kill hundreds of thousands of civilians and destroy the entire infrastructure, at a cost of tens of thousands of American lives. I don’t see that happening in Iraq or anywhere else. American kids aren’t that desperate for work anymore that they will march off to war in droves to die in foreign lands. American moms and dads only have 1 or 2 kids. They don’t have enough extra kids to lay on the altar of patria.This war is over. Somebody inform the generals. Never mind informing Bush. He’s out of his fucking mind.

By: Swami

Swami — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 03:59:29 +0000

Good Post, biggerbox. Very well conveyed message. As a matter of fact, as I was reading it I was admiring Maha’s wonderful writing abilites..seems I didn’t catch the author until Maha pointed you out.

By: Marshall

Marshall — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 03:33:43 +0000

Oh, yes, by the way, the killing fields were in Cambodia and, although done by the Khemer Rouge, were a direct result of the coup against Prince Norodom Sihanouk by Lon Nol in 1970, which the US Government supported, and only were stopped when the Communist Vietnamese invaded Cambodia in 1978, which invasion the US Government opposed.

Our record in Viet Nam may be mixed, but our record in Cambodia is little short of pure evil. About the best thing you can say is that Nixon and Kissinger didn’t actually intend the resulting disaster, but it’s hard to see how things could have gone worse if they had.

By: Marshall

Marshall — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 03:17:34 +0000

I stopped listening to Republican Presidents on the TV with Reagan in about 1981. I highly recommend it as a course of action; it saves time and political lies are generally much more transparent on the printed page.