Posted on 03/12/2006 4:34:06 AM PST by Hannah Senesh
An adviser to former President Richard Nixon said military leaders in Iraq are repeating a mistake made in Vietnam by not applying the full force of the military to win the war.
"Every asset of the nation must be applied to the conflict to bring about a quick and successful outcome, or don't do it," Alexander Haig said. "We're in the midst of another struggle where it appears to me we haven't learned very much."
The comments by Haig, also a Secretary of State under President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, were made Saturday at a conference examining the Vietnam war and the American presidency. But talk at the event that brought together advisers from the administrations of presidents Nixon, Lyndon B. Johnson, and John F. Kennedy turned to Iraq where the panelists saw parallels with Vietnam.
Former Nixon Secretary of State Henry Kissinger made a rare appearance at the conference. He was greeted outside by about 25 protesters who chanted "Kissinger should go to jail, no bail."
Kissinger spoke about the war in Iraq, saying he supported the invasion.
"We have a jihadist radical situation," he said. "If the US fails in Iraq, then the consequences will be that it motivates more to move toward the radical side."
But he was more reluctant to discuss Vietnam, dodging a question submitted by the audience about whether he wanted to apologize for policies that led to so many deaths in Vietnam.
"This is not the occasion," Kissinger said. "We have to start from the assumption that serious people were making serious decisions. So that's the sort of question that's highly inappropriate."
He added that the Vietnam War "has fundamentally affected my life in the sense that the Nixon debate doesn't ever seem to end and for many I am the surviving symbol of the Nixon administration."
Former Johnson adviser Jack Valenti said that the lessons of Vietnam have been "forgotten or ignored" in Iraq.
"No president can win a war when public support for that war begins to decline and evaporate," he said.
Valenti, former head of the Motion Picture Association, added there was no such thing as a good war, saying "all wars are inhumane, brutal, callous and full of depravity."
I wonder if you could add some topics to this post. I appear to have forgotten.
Thanks!
They have now appeared!
Thanks!
LOL
Note to Jack Valenti:
Guess you wish America had just stayed home during World War II eh?
What kind of freakin motion pictures do you think you would have been watching after the Amerikaan Okkupational Obergruppenfuehrer for Aryan Motion Picture Purity was done with your studios and performers?
Now Jack? Reach around behind yourself with both hands, grab both cheeks, and pinch yourself REAL hard, and WAKE YOUR AZZ UP!!!
I'm in charge here.
"This story jumps all over the place... is it about Iraq, Vietnam, Kissinger, Haig or Jack Valenti's naive views about all war?"
It's about the different views of various people at the conference.
It's an AP story.
"Guess you wish America had just stayed home during World War II eh?"
His comments were not only totally stupid but also utterly immoral.
I think the main point for the story is the headline... another "Quagmire" story for people who want a return to wars that last no longer than 3 weeks at the most.
Wrong analogy Alex, try
"Reestablishing an Elected Government" for 100.
Or "Post War headaches" for 200.
Or maybe "If we wanted to kill everybody, we had the manpower in theatre" for 300.
or "I want to say something to get in the news, but my brain disintegrated years ago" for 400.
More Vietnam discussion PING!
Haig?? Haig. Haig!! Now I remember. Wasn't he President for about 5 minutes one day back in 1981? (:^D)
He's in charge here, Haig and a host of others allowed Nam to be sacrificed at the expense of the dead we sustained.
For the record:
Valenti info:
-pilot in the Army Air Corps in World War II
-flew 51 combat missions
-commanded a B-25 attack bomber with the 12th Air Force in Italy.
- Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal with four clusters, Distinguished Unit Citation with one cluster, European Theater Ribbon with four battle stars.
No, you're not. I'm in charge here. Now beat it.
; )
The same could be said of 90 % of the movies Valenti's prized hollywood puts out.
As for his comments about not being able to win a war without public opinion, he's right. But, he's also a big part of the problem. The american people, while anesticized to cruelty, dpravity, inhumanity and gratuitus sex & violence are also victims of hollywood and network t.v's curent formula for solving world problems. Most are solved in 30 minutes to 2 hours with the exception being 6 hours in a 3 part miniseries.( even this tasks the attention span of most)
The inability of americans to focus ( attention span) is at an all time low and their "sense of reality" so skewed its impossible to truly inform them of anything.
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