Posted on 02/28/2008 9:48:32 AM PST by seanmerc
The successor to President George W. Bush has a clear-cut choice of saving lives or saving face.
Bush wants to leave to the next president the burden of ending the debacle he started five years ago when he ordered the invasion of Iraq under false pretenses, against a people who had done us no harm.
Bush cannot explain his reasons for the war without compounding his folly. To this moment, Bush has not given a logical explanation for his disastrous militarism.
How can he tell American families that their sons and daughters died for a terrible, tragic mistake committed by his administration?
History shows that other presidents have found ways to end U.S. involvement in wars. Most times there has been a public sigh of relief when that happens.
After 241 Marines and sailors were killed when the U.S. Marine outpost in Beirut was blown up in October 1983, President Ronald Reagan said the U.S. would not change its policy.
By April 1984, Reagan had quietly ordered all American forces out of Lebanon.
There were no public recriminations about cutting and running -- only a sense of relief.
Before then, Dwight D. Eisenhower promised during his 1952 presidential campaign “to go to Korea” and end an unpopular war that had begun in 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea.
The American people wanted out, so Eisenhower’s message resonated with voters and he won the presidency. The war ended in a stalemate with a divided Korea in 1953 -- and there are still some 27,000 American troops stationed on the peninsula.
Getting out of Vietnam was more difficult.
After years of the low-profile presence of U.S. military advisers there, President Lyndon B. Johnson sent major American combat units to Vietnam in 1965, kicking off a huge U.S. investment in the war.
As the war dragged on, Johnson agonized over how to end the conflict. He fretted over the growing American disillusionment with the war, the protests in the streets and decided not to seek reelection in 1968 when he realized he could no longer justify the casualties.
Richard M. Nixon was elected his successor and announced that his plan to end the U.S. involvement in the war was to turn the war over to the South Vietnamese in 1973. The torturous finale came two years later, when North Vietnamese troops defeated the South Vietnamese military and captured Saigon.
Author Otto J. Lehrack wrote about the presidential dilemma of Vietnam in his 2004 book “The First Battle: Operation Starlite and the Beginning of the Blood Debt in Vietnam.”
Lehrack makes the point that U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam could have been easily accomplished -- without much furor -- before August 1965.
But then came the first major Marine battle against the Viet Cong at Chu Lai. The Americans vanquished the Viet Cong but lost 54 casualties. The U.S. toll quickly escalated in later months and, by the end of 1965, American dead in Vietnam totaled 2,385.
From then on, American presidents found it politically, morally and emotionally difficult to disengage because of what Lehrack calls the “blood debt” that the U.S. leadership incurred as a result of these casualties and the thousands that followed. How could U.S. officials tell the next-of-kin and the American public that their loved ones died in a futile war?
“How could the American president defend the expenditure of more than two thousand American lives with nothing to show for it,” the author writes. America spent another 10 years and more than 56,000 additional lives in pursuit of the Kennedy-Johnson-Nixon policy in Vietnam.
“Like gamblers who have already lost their gambling money, and then the rent month, and then the car payment, and then the grocery money, and then borrowed or stole in the hope of changing their luck, the Johnson and Nixon administrations kept signing markers to America for a debt in gore that they hoped a reversal of fortune would justify.”
In other words, the United States was getting further in “because it would be too embarrassing to America’s interest to get out.” It sounds sadly familiar.
That’s why it’s time now for the Democratic presidential candidates to step up and say we are getting out of Iraq -- pronto.
Let’s face it: That country belongs to the Iraqis.
(Helen Thomas can be reached at hthomas@hearstdc.com)
She is proof that journalism has absolutely no quality control. Gads, is she dumb. We’re talking public school teacher dumb. Senator dumb. Noam Chomsky dumb.
Oh My God!!!!!! I can’t hit the abuse button fast enough.
There is absolutely no relationship between VietNam and Iraq. How this pathetic woman can even try to make the connection in this piece only serves to emphasize her blind hatred of GWB rather than any rational point.
She’s a peach, isn’t she?
After reading this article, I am starting to believe that Helen Thomas is the intellectual sister of Ron Paul.
She’s even dumber than that... she makes regular dumb people look like Einstein.
Shut up Helen
The only relationshipe between vietnam and iraq = they are on planet earth. Thats it. Sorry the LSD you took in the 60’s are flashingback now.
The Dead Collector: Bring out yer dead.
[a man puts a body on the cart]
Large Man with Dead Body: Here’s one.
The Dead Collector: That’ll be ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn’t: I’m not dead.
The Dead Collector: What?
Large Man with Dead Body: Nothing. There’s your ninepence.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn’t: I’m not dead.
The Dead Collector: ‘Ere, he says he’s not dead.
Large Man with Dead Body: Yes he is.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn’t: I’m not.
The Dead Collector: He isn’t.
Large Man with Dead Body: Well, he will be soon, he’s very ill.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn’t: I’m getting better.
Large Man with Dead Body: No you’re not, you’ll be stone dead in a moment.
The Dead Collector: Well, I can’t take him like that. It’s against regulations.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn’t: I don’t want to go on the cart.
Large Man with Dead Body: Oh, don’t be such a baby.
The Dead Collector: I can’t take him.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn’t: I feel fine.
Large Man with Dead Body: Oh, do me a favor.
The Dead Collector: I can’t.
Large Man with Dead Body: Well, can you hang around for a couple of minutes? He won’t be long.
The Dead Collector: I promised I’d be at the Robinsons’. They’ve lost nine today.
Large Man with Dead Body: Well, when’s your next round?
The Dead Collector: Thursday.
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn’t: I think I’ll go for a walk.
Large Man with Dead Body: You’re not fooling anyone, you know. Isn’t there anything you could do?
The Dead Body That Claims It Isn’t: I feel happy. I feel happy.
[the Dead Collector glances up and down the street furtively, then silences the Body with his a whack of his club]
Large Man with Dead Body: Ah, thank you very much.
The Dead Collector: Not at all. See you on Thursday.
Large Man with Dead Body: Right.
That’s not saying much for Ron Paul, is it?
We need to send Helen as an emisary to al Qaeda. As long as she keeps the burque on...
Axis Sally is due a full pardon if this witch isn’t tried for treason.
The Matron of the Dinosaur Press is just wallowing in the quicksand, “Like gamblers who have already lost their gambling money, and then the rent month, and then the car payment, and then the grocery money, and then borrowed or stole in the hope of changing their luck.”
If they keep thrashing, they will sink in the soup they wallow in.
Axis Sally, convicted traitor (WWII) audio sample
http://www.earthstation1.com/WWIIAudio/Axis_Sally_02c.wav
transcript:
“Well, I’m sorry girls but the time is really nearly up now and just in closing, girls, I like to ask you one question, on the level, straight shoulder to shoulder.”
“If you child behaves badly, do you agree with its misbehavior? Do you say to yourself, ‘My child, right or wrong, I don’t care what he does.’?”
“No you don’t.”
“You try to correct that child, you try to make him a better citizen.”
“Well, and what is a country? A country is only made up of people after all. Do you say, ‘My country right or wrong?’ No, girls. That’s false sentimentality and I do NOT praise(?) my country right or wrong.”
“I love America but I do NOT love Roosevelt and all of his kike boyfriends who have thrown us into the awful turmoil. And I’ll stick to my guns as long as I can tire(?) them, girls.”
“So you’ve not heard the last from me and I’m sure you must reject(?) your radio because you will want to hear more of what Germany is saying through the medium of an American girl.”
Helen, you ignorant slut!
All who follow her ideology are.....
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