Vietnam remark misrepresents history, occupation in Iraq

Queen Pham Guest Writer

War opponents were enraged. Americans were shocked. The world was speechless… The Vietnamese just sighed.

“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, whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like ‘boat people,’ ‘re-education campus’ and ‘killing fields,’” Bush addressed to an audience of Veterans of Foreign Wars in Missouri last August.

What superior ignorance, or rather, shameless retelling of history, to cite Vietnam as a lesson of America’s immature withdrawal!

The President repelled even his supporters’ last bit of confidence in his leadership by practically suggesting that the painful Vietnam War should have been prolonged to achieve an ultimate victory, which—those who lived that time still remember all too well—was nowhere in sight throughout years of changing strategies and absolute destruction.

Bush’s “war on terror” rhetoric and his administration’s distorted picture of the Iraq war—or more accurately, the U.S. war in Iraq—is eerily similar to how Eisenhower used to herald the menace of a seemingly imminent domino effect in Asia and how Johnson loudly defended “American credibility.’” First, Americans were told to ship troops to a land half a globe away to pre-empt an intolerable terrorist threat to national security, echoing the hysteria of the Red Scare and a long period of containment policies. Then, military forces continued to build, ironically, to lessen violence and stabilize the region.

Now that nearly 3,800 Americans are already dead along with almost 28,000 wounded, the White House refuses to leave in “dishonor,” avoids responsibility for the body count of more than 1,028,907 Iraqis, and vainly tries reassure us that the Iraqi people need and want us there.

Every day, innocent people are killed, homes destroyed, children orphaned and conflicts deepened. Without a doubt, human and material devastation keeps mounting as long as military troops keep occupying and terrorizing the country. In stark contrast to dismal reality, Bush’s stay-to-make-it-better preaching makes a tormenting joke. His outrageous Vietnam analogy, however, sadly reflects a revisionist trend that is clamoring for supremacy in the U.S. This group insists on a glorious triumph if only America changed strategies, introduced more troops, and were a little more patient. They proudly present Vietnam lessons to apply to Iraq.

But no matter how diligently or blatantly Bush and his revisionist fans try to rewrite history, America lost this war the very moment Tommy Franks led the 2003 invasion of Iraq —with agonizing irony—under the code name “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” Democracy cannot be spread with guns and bombs. Violence only perpetuates violence.

Thirty years ago, it was not America’s pullout but America’s imposing intervention in Indochina that eventually created “boat people,” “re-education camps” and “killing fields.”

Bush and his war-waging administration must realize that a troop withdrawal from Iraq should be arranged the sooner the better, because they are already making the “unmistakable legacy of Vietnam.”