Bush Compares Iraq to Vietnam Saying We Got Out Too Early

By Jeralyn, Section War In Iraq
Posted on Wed Aug 22, 2007 at 08:26:12 PM EST
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President Bush unveiled a new theory as to why we need to stay in Iraq. Innocent civilians will be killed if we leave, just like they were in Vietnam, where we got out too early.

"The price of America's withdrawal [in Vietnam]was paid by millions of innocent citizens," he told war veterans in Missouri.
..."Many argued that if we pulled out, there would be no consequences for the Vietnamese people," Mr Bush said. "The world would learn just how costly these misimpressions would be.
"Whatever your position in that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens," Mr Bush said, mentioning reprisals against US allies in Vietnam, the displacement of Vietnamese refugees and the massacres in Cambodia under Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge.

The full transcript is here. Crooks and Liars has the video of MSNBC's Neil Shuster on the report.

More...

Logan at C&L says:

The president says that America’s departure sparked the Khmer Rouge’s murderous rule, but as Shuster points out, the killings started well before the U.S. pulled out and that it was a mistake to go into Cambodia in the first place as we only made the violence worse. As for Bush’s claim that pulling out of South East Asia emboldened America’s enemies, Shuster had this to say:
....Shuster: “…But he wasn’t talking about our enemies at the time, including communists and the Soviet Union during the cold war. Instead, President Bush spoke of Osama Bin Laden who mentioned Viet Nam a few years ago in declaring America would be weak in fighting al Qaeda. …Bin Laden, however, is running al Qaeda from somewhere along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, not from inside Iraq.

Joe at AmericaBlog has the quotes of Bush being against comparing Vietnam to Iraq before he was for it. Think Progress quotes UCLA historian Robert Dallek, as saying Bush is “twisting history.”

“We were in Vietnam for 10 years. We dropped more bombs on Vietnam than we did in all of World War II in every theater. We lost 58,700 American lives, the second-greatest loss of lives in a foreign conflict. And we couldn’t work our will,” he said.
“What is Bush suggesting? That we didn’t fight hard enough, stay long enough? That’s nonsense. It’s a distortion,” he continued. “We’ve been in Iraq longer than we fought in World War II. It’s a disaster, and this is a political attempt to lay the blame for the disaster on his opponents. But the disaster is the consequence of going in, not getting out.”

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Bush Compares Iraq to Vietnam Saying We Got Out Too Early | 19 comments (19 topical)

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We Got Out of Vietnam Too Early? (5.00 / 2) (#1)
by osage on Wed Aug 22, 2007 at 09:41:07 PM EST

Bush is willing to sacrifice thousands more American lives in his Iraq fiasco. Saying that we should have remained in Vietnam is outright insanity. Bush is out one dumb SOB. He belongs in a padded cell or in a federal institution so he can't do more harm to our country. How this freaking idiot got elected president shames all conscientious Americans. This draft-dodger offer any opinion on Vietnam is outrageosly disgraceful. Puck him and his cowardly and ignorant arrogance. Had he served in country, he wouldn't have lasted a week.

Digby Chimes In (5.00 / 2) (#4)
by squeaky on Wed Aug 22, 2007 at 10:06:46 PM EST

digby

Worth a read as usual.

: Great post from digby (none / 0) (#5)
by Edger on Wed Aug 22, 2007 at 10:12:03 PM EST

...now that we all agree that there's been prah-gress we are going to have to give the surge more time to make more prah-gress FU's for everyone!
...
But it's a great plan for staying in the minority even when the wind is at your back and you are facing a party in steep decline, if that's what they desire.

[ Parent ]

The similarity with Vietnam (5.00 / 1) (#6)
by Maryb2004 on Wed Aug 22, 2007 at 10:30:05 PM EST

is that blame for the loss in Iraq is going to be shifted by this group onto the same group they want to blame for the loss in Vietnam - the Democrats. Oh, if only those terrible Democrats hadn't forced us to leave we would have won that war. That's an all purpose phrase from their point of view.

Just give it a few... (5.00 / 1) (#7)
by TomStewart on Wed Aug 22, 2007 at 10:59:47 PM EST

...more soldiers. Just a few hundred soldiers more and this thing will turn around.

That's what people mean when they say that we should give this disaster more time. Just a few more bodies and we can get this to a time when Bush is out of office and we can blame the Democrats for the whole thing.

People will die, and we can forget the lies that led us into this mess, and the blood will wash away any blame our leaders can have. Just a few more lives. Who would begrudge Bush that?

Vietnam taught us that it's never to late to blame peace for death.

Lot's more where they came from... (none / 0) (#8)
by Edger on Wed Aug 22, 2007 at 11:21:15 PM EST

One life a day for all that oil...

[ Parent ]

One life a day? (5.00 / 1) (#10)
by TomStewart on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 01:49:14 AM EST

That's not so much for all that lovely oil, as long as it's some one they don't know.

14 soldiers died Wednesday in a helicopter crash, including 4 from Fort Lewis, here in Washington State. But that's okay, it's no one Bush knows.

[ Parent ]

Yeah well, (none / 0) (#13)
by Edger on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 07:14:52 AM EST

Fort Lewis? Bush has probably never heard of Fort Lewis. Or of Washington state. Or of those 14 soldiers.

So nobody who's anybody would be from there, would they?

Army Spc. George V. Libby, also from Fort Lewis, died in Afghanistan. 23 years young.

[ Parent ]

: And Bush has probably (none / 0) (#14)
by Edger on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 07:26:09 AM EST

never heard of Clovis, CA either. But on the remote chance that he has trouble sleeping tonight and is up browsing the web:
A California family has lost its second son in Iraq -- one of 14 U.S. soldiers killed in a Black Hawk helicopter crash on Wednesday, friends said.
A third son is to return from Iraq, a police spokesman said on behalf of the family.
The family of Spc. Nathan Hubbard, 21, was taking his death "very, very hard," said police spokeswoman Janet Stoll-Lee. The soldier's father, Jeff Hubbard, is a retired 30-year veteran of the police department.
R.I.P.

[ Parent ]

if robert dallek is the best (5.00 / 2) (#11)
by cpinva on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 01:59:45 AM EST

historian UCLA can come up with, they'd be better off keeping him at home, since he clearly hasn't a clue what he's talking about.

america's involvement in vietnam, militarily, began at least as far back as 1957, during the second eisenhower administration. not, as many republicans would have you believe, during the kennedy administration.

don't take my word for it, look it up for yourself. if we (the "royal" we) can't even get basic facts (facts easily checked on the net) about history correct, however do we expect to overcome the republican/conservative noise machine?

i give bush credit for chutzpah, if nothing else: a war he went to great pains to avoid, one fought in by both his recent presidential opponents, and several primary opponents, and he brings it up intentially, to defend his own current ineptitude. either chutzpah, great stupidity, or he figures the rubes won't know the difference.

myself, i'm taking bets on c.

Bush Is Right - Iraq Is Like Vietnam (5.00 / 4) (#12)
by john horse on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 05:58:00 AM EST

Bush is right - Iraq Is Like Vietnam. I'm glad that after years of denial Bush has finally admitted it. Does anyone remember how he used to argue that Iraq was going to be like postwar Germany? You know things have just about hit rock bottom when the only analogy Bush has left is to compare Iraq with Vietnam.

Iraq is like Vietnam in that:

We would have been better off had we never gotten involved.

It was based on a theory that proved or will be proved false.

The President had to lie in order to justify sending in the troops.

Iraq like Vietnam has turned into a quagmire.

I have nothing to add to the bloggers who have pointed out the inaccuracies in Bush's historical revisionism (see Talkingpointsmemo for example).

Here is a question I would like to see a reporter ask Bush. In Vietnam we had 58,000 Americans killed, 300,000 wounded, and 2,000 missing. If you were President would you have continued to stay in Vietnam?

It's true. (5.00 / 2) (#19)
by kirkaracha on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 11:40:30 AM EST

Similarities between the Iraq War and the Vietnam War:

The US entered the war on false pretenses
The US is simultaneously claiming the country's government is sovereign and trying to call the shots
The conflict is primarily political, but the US is trying to win it militarily
The opponents of the US are in their own country, and fighting to control their own country
Language and cultural differences make it difficult to distinguish friend from foe
The US government is lying about how well things are going
The US is overstating the involvement of external forces
The military is trying to fight an insurgency using army-vs.-army methods
The US is going to lose

Differences between the Iraq War and the Vietnam War:

* Vietnam is mostly jungle; Iraq is mostly desert

[ Parent ]

Bush's Legacy and his tough talk (5.00 / 1) (#16)
by Peaches on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 10:08:50 AM EST

With Rove's leaving, the surge's failure, and Bush's continued tough talk, I have been meaning to write a diary on what this means for the remainder of Bush's presidency and his legacy.

Bush knows the situation in Iraq, he just doesn't want to take the blame for it. We cannot sustain the troop commitment to get the job done. The state of Iraq no longer exists and whether we stay or not, the violence will continue in this region between the may competing and disparate parties for many years to come.

Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, Turkey and Iran will be drawn into the conflict as the role of the US diminishes over the coming years. Bush and his advisors are aware of this inevitability. Knowing that the next administration is likely to be Democrat and that they will likely be charged with continuing his War of reducing troop levels in Iraq, Bush has nothing to gain by showing his weakness now. All he has to hang his hat on is the neocon interpretation of history calling for more military might than was actually used. As Iran gains influence in the ME during the 21 century, it will be Rove and his cronies citing Bush's warnings and desires to attack Iran. As the civil War continues with more Sunnis, Shias and Kurdish attacks, it will again be Rove and company reminding us of this history, knowing all along that it was Bush's blunder that destabilized the region in the first place and we did not have the means to continue a sustained presence in the region necessary to hold the Iraqi state in place.

There is still a strong possibility that Bush will send the bombers and cruise missiles into Iran as the rhetoric heats up over the terrorist label of the Iranian guard and the accusations of Iranian support of insurgents. This attack will not be done with the intention of weakening Iran, but rather with the hope of strengthening the legacy of George Bush, Karl Rove, DOnald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, however as Hilary Clinton will be left with the task of cleaning up the mess.

Ironically, the charge that Iraq will be another Viet Nam and Americans Penchant for believing such nonsense and refusing to accept that we are no longer a superpower may leave Hilary Clinton with the politically expedient decision to actually increase our presence in Iraq by instilling the draft and continuing the confrontation with Iran in order to avoid the defeatist label Rove will certainly lay at her feet.

: btw, (none / 0) (#18)
by Peaches on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 10:36:47 AM EST

If you are wondering why I have succumbed to the foregone conclusion that it will be Hilary as our next President and not Obama or someone else, it is because the power core in this country has by all appearances decided this for us already and anointed her as our next President. Even the progressive and Anti-Iraq war bloggers appear to have succumbed to this inevitability.
One of the disturbing arguments for Hilary and her electability is the description of her as more politically savvy than any of her opponents, especially Obama. But, being a good politician will also lead he to make the politically expedient decisions as President such as the one I describe above. What America needs is not the politically expedient or the candidate that best understands politics and always speaks appropriately on every subject. What America needs is someone with the morale courage to tell the rewriters of history that they are wrong and even to put them on the defensive by investigating their role in mishaps during the Bush Administration. Someone who no one accuses of being Politically savvy, like Dennis Kucinich for example. But, progressives and the left are too focuses on the politically expedient and not the morally superior option. That is why the Presidency of Hilary Clinton in 2008 is inevitable.

[ Parent ]

If the United States leaves Iraq (none / 0) (#2)
by Edger on Wed Aug 22, 2007 at 09:56:57 PM EST

Innocent civilians will be killed if we leave, just like they were in Vietnam, where we got out too early???

If the United States leaves Iraq things will really get bad:

This appears to be the last remaining, barely-breathing argument of that vanishing species who still support the god-awful war. The argument implies a deeply-felt concern about the welfare and safety of the Iraqi people. What else could it mean? That the US military can't leave because it's needed to protect the oil bonanza awaiting American oil companies as soon as the Iraqi parliament approves the new written-in-Washington oil law? No, the Bush administration loves the people of Iraq. How much more destruction, killing and torturing do you need to be convinced of that? We can't leave because of the violence. We can't leave until we have assured that peace returns to our dear comrades in Iraq.
To better understand this argument, it helps to keep in mind the following about the daily horror that is life in Iraq:
It did not exist before the US occupation.
Has there ever been an empire that didn't tell itself and the world that it was unlike all other empires, that its mission was not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate? And that it had God on its side?
Will America's immune system be able to rid itself of its raw-meat conservatives?

Pre-Invasion Iraq Video:

People on an Iraqi street, before they were made so happy by George W. Bush's 2003 liberation.
There isn't a lot to say. Watch the video...

Bush unveiled a new theory as to why we need to stay in Iraq.

To save face for Bush and buy him time to leave office office without having to change his mind?

'The Surge Is Working!' Isn't Working

Bush knows it. Petraeus knows it. Crocker knows it. I know it. You know it. Pelosi and Reid and Levin and Lieberman and everyone except the in denial wingnuts knows it.

: I can hardly think of (5.00 / 1) (#3)
by Edger on Wed Aug 22, 2007 at 09:59:13 PM EST

anything else that's more brazenly homicidal than encouraging the deliberate killing of more soldiers and civilians just so President George W. Bush can leave office without having to change his mind. It's like Rove grabbing a small animal and saying, "You know, I went through the trouble of capturing this small animal, I might as well rip its head off. No turning back now, yo! Whee!"
'The Surge Is Working!' Isn't Working

[ Parent ]

What digby said on this (none / 0) (#9)
by chemoelectric on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 01:27:15 AM EST

Apparently digby sees things my way on the insufficiency of de-funding after date certain that isn't going to happen anyway:

Frankly, I don't think it will make any substantive difference anyway. Bush will never agree to a withdrawal and I think even if the congress pulled the funding he'd stubbornly keep them there.

This digby is a very wise person. She writes this in a Hullabaloo commentary on the Vietnam speech. This speech gives me some kind of deja vu; maybe Sidney Blumenthal reported on these Bushian theories some months ago. I could swear I'd already read of them, and that it was some while ago.

I am concerned that attack on Iran is Bush's planned prime method for ensuring, as he has told his acquaintances he would do, that a successor would be unable to extract the US from the Christian Crusade against 'Evildoers' in the Oil Lands. Our best chance for avoiding this is, now, the sudden unfolding of a massive scandal. Is there anything in sight? And also we must do our best to ensure that Congress's approval numbers go lower still; we cannot vote against Democrats, because this is voting for 'Republicans', but we can force the Democrats to look into a future where their names are recorded as failures and villains.

wing nuts buy it (none / 0) (#15)
by eric on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 09:48:38 AM EST

There are a good percentage of Americans who do think that we might have prevailed in Vietnam but for weak willed politicians and lack of resolve to stay. Unfortunately for bush, these are pretty much the 29% of Americans still support bush generally - the wing-nut caucus.

Vietman was a lie (none / 0) (#17)
by Saul on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 10:10:04 AM EST

What has to be kept in perspective, and is sometimes forgoten, is that we should have NEVER gone into Vietnam or Iraq. The rationale used by Johnson to go to war was a LIE. There was no Gulf of Tonkin incident it was a MANUFACTURED incident. Johnson used it this fake incident to escalate the war. Look at all the lives that would have been spared on both sides of the Vietnam war if we had never gone. What happened at the end of the war after we left was going to happened even if we never had gone to Vietnam. Yes atrocities were committed after we left but better that those atrocities occurred than 59,000 americans would have died, along with thousands if not million Vietnamese both south and north and not to include the wounded and lamed individuals.
When you compare the two wars Vietnam and Iraq both unnecessary wars, Iraq is worse. The atrocites predicted that are going to happen after we leave Iraq one day are going to happen regardless, so let them happen now and spare any more solidiers lives and probably plenty of Iraq lives also. Maybe this will teach the American government from here on out, don't ever go to war on the wings of lie. Iraq was a total lie from day one. Why should we support, with any more blood and treasure, an adminstration that lied to us from day one. The intelligence used to rationalize the war in Iraq NOT FLAUD it was literally MANUFCTURED and sold to us. Go to PBS and get the documentary the Dark Side. There you will see how Cheney pressured the CIA to give him the manufactured intelligence to go to war. This is the worst president and the worst adminstration that ever existed. God help us.