Posted on 09/21/2005 11:39:12 AM PDT by jmc1969
WASHINGTON Sep 21, 2005 — Bush officials bristle at the suggestion the war in Iraq might look anything like Vietnam. Yet just as today's anti-war protests recall memories of yesteryear, President Bush's own words echo those of President Johnson in 1967, a pivotal year for the U.S. in Vietnam.
"America is committed to the defense of South Vietnam until an honorable peace can be negotiated," Johnson told the Tennessee Legislature on March 15, 1967. Despite the obstacles to victory, the president said, "We shall stay the course."
After 14 Marines died in a roadside bombing on Aug. 3, Bush declared: "We will stay the course, we will complete the job in Iraq. And the job is this: We'll help the Iraqis develop a democracy."
About 500,000 U.S. troops were in Vietnam in 1967 after a three-year buildup, compared with about 140,000 in Iraq today. Heavy aerial bombing was a primary U.S. strategy in Vietnam while Iraq, after the initial campaign of "shock and awe," has been mainly a ground war. The U.S. negotiated for peace in Vietnam, but there is no single entity with which to negotiate in Iraq.
Knowing the long, painful and divisive Vietnam War ended with an unceremonious U.S. withdrawal and the fall of South Vietnam, administration officials have blanched at comparisons with Iraq. The administration declined to comment on comparisons between the rhetoric of Johnson and Bush.
Johnson's main arguments were much like those Bush has employed: War was justified to protect the U.S. and to encourage freedom everywhere. When faced with mounting losses on the battlefield, both presidents offered the dead as a reason to keep fighting.
"When a war is long-lived and the outcome is not demonstrably positive, the lines of argument available to a president are seriously constrained," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. "Democrat or Republican, 1960s or early part of the 21st century, you're going to hear a common rhetoric."
South Vietnam, politically unstable because of internal violence and corruption, stumbled toward elections to adopt a constitution and to select officials not unlike the process Iraq is undergoing.
"Our nation was not born easily. There were times in those years of the 18th century when it seemed as if we might not be born at all," Johnson said in a speech on Aug. 16, 1967.
"Given that background, we ought not to be astonished that this struggle in Vietnam continues," Johnson said. "We ought not to be astonished that that nation, wracked by a war of insurgency and beset by its neighbors to the north, has not already emerged, full-blown, as a perfect model of two-party democracy."
Bush, too, has compared Iraq's difficulties in determining its political future to postcolonial America's.
In his radio address on Aug. 27, Bush said: "Like our own nation's founders over two centuries ago, the Iraqis are grappling with difficult issues, such as the role of the federal government. What is important is that Iraqis are now addressing these issues through debate and discussion not at the barrel of a gun."
Bush has often linked the security and freedom of the United States to the war in Iraq. On Aug. 4 he told reporters: "We're laying the foundation of peace for generations to come. We're defeating the terrorists in a place like Iraq so we don't have to face them here at home. And, as well, we're spreading democracy and freedom to parts of the world that are desperate for democracy and freedom."
"Be assured that the death of your son will have meaning," Johnson told the parents of a posthumous recipient of the Medal of Honor during a Rose Garden ceremony on April 6, 1967. "For I give you also my solemn pledge that our country will persist and will prevail in the cause for which your boy died."
Speaking to military families in Idaho on Aug. 24, Bush said: "These brave men and women gave their lives for a cause that is just and necessary for the security of our country, and now we will honor their sacrifice by completing their mission."
Bush remains optimistic about the outcome of the war though just four out of 10 of those polled favor his handling of it.
A loss of public confidence overwhelmed Johnson. By March 1968, he had decided someone else needed to see the war to its conclusion and startled the nation by announcing he would not seek another term.
The idea is just occurring to some that the War on Poverty was the big fiasco we should be looking at.
The MSM misreported the Vietnam War at the time, and they continue to do so now. The fact is, South Vietnam defeated the communist guerillas and threw back a massive North Vietnamese military assault in 1972 after 500,000 U.S. ground forces had already been withdrawn. The 1975 attack that finally overcame the South Vietnamese was a full scale attack by regular army divisions, led by columns of Soviet-made tanks moving along open roads, which would have been utterly destroyed had the democrats in Congress allowed US airpower to come to the aid of our allies. The MSM and the then-congressional democrats have the blood of literally millions of southeast asians on their hands, which is why the big lie must be perpetuated from generation to generation. The CIA said there would be a bloodbath if we withdrew our assistance, and there was.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1488764/posts
There is a fairly recent thread on this.
Why don't they juxtapose Bush's words with those of Roosevelt in WWII, or even Truman's on Korea. Truman's handling of Korea was so unpopular he did not run for reelection, yet America prevailed.
Try this on for size:
"By November 2008, Bush had decided someone else needed to see the war to its conclusion and startled the MSM by announcing he would not seek another term."
The MSM is inherently lazy and dishonest. Agenda driven journalism is no more than propaganda. Bite me, Douglass K. Your time is up.
Wrong.. The reason why Truman did not run was because new constitional ammendment was put in restricing the Presidents to just serve 2 terms.. It was Johnson who did not run cause of Vietnam..
Sorry I believe you are wrong. Truman finished Roosevelt's term and was elected once. His quote "if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen" is never given with the context. he was answering why he didn't seek reelection and he said he couldn't take the heat, so he got out. His popularity was at rock bottom for firing McArthur and his conduct of Korea. Ike ended the war quickly.
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