Posted on 10/05/2006 6:05:57 AM PDT by seanmerc
Say it isn't so. Hawkish Henry Kissinger is advising President George W. Bush about Iraq war strategy? This is deja vu all over again.
The former secretary of state -- who served in that job from 1973 to 1979 and previously from 1969 as national security affairs adviser -- inspires too many bad memories of the Vietnam War.
I remember when Kissinger came into the White House press room in 1972, just before the presidential election and announced "peace is at hand."
Three years later, we fled Saigon by our fingertips. Who can forget the pictures of refugees piling into helicopters parked on Saigon rooftops, with the North Vietnamese army at the gate?
That was in 1975, and we survived the defeat. The U.S. and Vietnam are now friendly, with diplomatic and business links.
Kissinger is back as an elder statesman, doling out advice to embattled Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney that "victory over the insurgency is the only meaningful exit strategy."
Journalist-author Bob Woodward describes Kissinger's strong anti-withdrawal views in his new book, "State of Denial."
Woodward wrote that the president has met privately with Kissinger every couple of months, making him Bush's most regular outside adviser. The author said Cheney told him in the summer of 2005 that he meets with Kissinger at least once a month.
Kissinger's message to the president and his top aides -- including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice -- was they should not give an inch and to stick it out in Iraq.
He maintained that Vietnam collapsed like a house of cards because the Nixon administration did not have time, focus, energy and political support, and the American people did not have the will.
Actually, I recall things differently. As I remember it, thousands of Americans hit the streets to protest against the war. Neither President Richard Nixon nor Lyndon B. Johnson before him could sell the public on the need to remain in Southeast Asia. Besides, Nixon was elected in 1968 on his campaign slogan that he had a plan to end the war.
A selective memory may be forgivable, but not when old men continue to want to send young men and women to far off places to fight but can't quite explain why.
White House press secretary Tony Snow said Kissinger told him "he supports the overall thrust and direction of the administration policy" in Iraq.
Snow also told reporters that "victory was the only exit strategy after the Civil War, and then after World War I and World War II. Typically in time of war, that is the exit strategy."
Excuse me, Tony, but surely you are not comparing the U.S. invasion of Iraq with the two world wars?
Kissinger also is quoted as saying that Bush needed to resist pressure to withdraw troops since that would create a momentum for an exit that is less than victory.
Woodward said on CBS's "60 Minutes" that "Kissinger's fighting the Vietnam War again because, in his view, the problem in Vietnam was we lost our will."
Well, Kissinger was right about that. The reason is simple: People saw no reason to lose more lives there.
According to Woodward's book, Kissinger told Michael Gerson, Bush's former chief speechwriter, "The president can't be talking about troop reductions as a centerpiece."
To make his point, Kissinger gave Gerson a copy of a memo he had written to Nixon on Sept. 10, 1969.
"Withdrawal of U.S. troops will become like salted peanuts to the American public. The more U.S. troops come home, the more will be demanded," he wrote.
"It will become harder and harder to maintain the morale of those who remain, not to speak of their mothers," he said.
Kissinger also feels that public pressure for withdrawal from Iraq would only encourage the enemy.
His views match the administration's 35-page "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" issued last year.
The administration would prefer not to evoke memories of the Vietnam quagmire, the 58,000-plus American war dead and its bitter legacy, yet it all sounds too familiar when we hear officials insist we need to "stay the course" and deride dissenters as those who want to "cut and run."
They seem to forget that "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
(Helen Thomas can be reached at the e-mail address hthomas@hearstdc.com).
We fled Saigon, because your heros cut the funding, you moron!
I never liked Kissinger.
and PLEASE, do NOT place a photo of the old hag Thomas. Just this 1 time, do NOT follow the rules.
You're fortunate--I haven't figured out how to paste a picture into a FR post yet. Anybody care to enlighten me on how to do that?
Henry supported our wildly successful "incremental" approach to the war in Viet Nam.
These people make me sick! Anyone of their folks is free to influence policy (including their disgrace of a former President, Mr. Peanut) but by golly gum let a former Republican official be called upon to share his wisdom and experience and it's an outrage. That hag has lasted more terms than I have been alive. It is time for HER to shut her stupid mouth!
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Yes, Helen dear. You do.
Kissinger was Sec. of State from 1973 to 1977 not until 1979. Frustrating to see factual errors in the news like this.
My dear Helen. I remember that it was you and your ilk that caused us to leave with our tail between our legs.
Ain't that funny. I always liked Kissinger. On foreign policy and diplomacy, you might even say I'm a Kissinger disciple. Enjoyed all 4000 pages of his autobiography, too.
Seems that some of his papers just released show that he agreed to LET N. Vietnam take the south.
Sorry, I just don't trust the guy. Didn't then, don't now.
Only liberals consider it a scandal to recommend victory.
Helen Thomas:
Westminster College yearbook 1933
psst - different Helen :-)
That means somethings up. He's one of the key manipulators, behind the scenes, of nations interactions.
Wickedness in high places
She has the gall to blame Kissinger for that disgraceful episode? She, John Kerry, Jane Fonda, and all their cohorts on the left deliberately brought that scenario about. Most of them probably cheered when it happened. Now she tries to blame that on Kissinger? That takes my breath away.
Hey, that Helen looks human :)
All you other guys that posted that old hags pic......may the fleas of 1000 muslims infest your armpits :)~
Just kiddin guys....1 or 2 muslim fleas would be more than enough
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