Sometimes something might be true without reference to what George W. Bush said about it. Sometimes it’s possible to arrive at an informed conclusion about something without knowing what the president said about it. It’s curious (or not) that you presume we “right wingers” see reality only in terms of the pronouncements of the president, when, if you read the comments here, you seem more obsessed with his words than anyone else who has weighed in on them.

Juan Paxety:
“I wonder if democratic government is even possible in a country where people regard their tribes as more important than a national government.”

If you live in America, you live under a deomcratic government in a country where people once regarded their States as more important than a national government. So… yes.

Dan:
“Why should we believe him when he says that Iraq would turn out like Vietnam?”

It’s not a matter of believing George Bush. It’s a matter of using your brain and observing history repeat itself. Bush is merely pointing out what we can see for ourselves quite clearly.

Rodney A Stanton:
“I feel betrayed and a sucker for Karl’s lies.”

What lies? First of all, you’re generalizing all of the comments made my Bush and Rove over the past 5 years into two wildly simplistic assessments - He says it’s like Vietnam, he says it isn’t. There isn’t enough space here to explain what’s wrong with that train of thought.

Second, you’re judging those comments as fact when they are in fact opinion. You’re free to make up your very own opinion without needing to adopt those made by elected officials - even if you helped elect them.

Nonetheless, I want our troops out of harm’s way. I see no reason whatsoever to have our troops getting killed indefinitely when there is no hope of the Iraqis resolving their numerous and unending issues. I support the troops, not the Iraqis. I’m sure you Rightwingers are shocked and awed that a liberal supports the troops since all your talking points say otherwise. Nonetheless, us lefties actually support the troops, with action not lip service. We want our troops out. Not because we’re soft. Because we’d prefer that they were attacking al-qaeda in Pakistan (you know that Osama guy W has forgotten about except when quoting him in speeches). Iraq has never had anything to do with al-qaeda and never will. Iraqis will destroy any al-qaeda remnants as soon as we leave. You think the sunnis and shiites are killing each other in preparation for letting al-qaeda take over Iraq?

I’m curious how righties can continue to support W now that he’s labelling Iraq the New Vietnam. It’s gotta be tough carrying water these days in the face of this most recent and pathetic PR campaign. The only comparisons to Vietnam that should apply to Iraq are: 1. We should’ve never been there in first place. 2. We should have never stayed as long as we did.

In closing, I’d like to ask why anyone should believe what W is telling us about what would happen if we were to leave Iraq? He hasn’t been right about a single thing other than the fact that it would “be hard work” when it comes to Iraq. Why should we believe him when he says that Iraq would turn out like Vietnam? He wasn’t anywhere near Vietnam. He has no military expertise that we know of. Why do people still act like he knows what he’s talking about?

And perhaps you have a point about “few repercussions” for Thailand and Cambodia. But even the Times can’t be as obtuse as they seem to be when calling genocide on a scale committed by Pol Pot a “few repercussions.”

This is a perplexing statement. You said you read that passage several times, but it seems it didn’t do any good. No, Mr. Moran, the NY Times said the U.S. pullout had “few negative repercussions”; they did not say there were “no” negative repercussions.

“To say that our pull out didn’t have negative repercussions for the US or many of our allies is insane.”

What’s insane is to claim that “few” means “no.” If you had been accurate, the question you should have asked is “Is the NY Times actually arguing our pull out from Vietnam had few negative repercussions for Thailand and Cambodia.”

Basically you took down your own straw man. Nice job.

It was not so much the withdrawal of our troops that brought down South Vietnam and involved us in the guilt for what happened to people there afterward, so much as our failure to help protect that client country once the North attacked again in force. Popular revulsion at the war, expressed through congressional resolutions, had a lot to do with that, as did the weakness of the Ford Administration in the wake of Nixon’s crimes in the Watergate affair.

The Vietnam War was one campaign in the Cold War. To say without reservation it was a mistake (for the U.S.) to even attempt it it seems to me you would have to replay history without it — let the communists overrun the whole of Vietnam unopposed in 1954 or so and see what the consequences were for Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore — and discover there was a better outcome to the Cold War.

It is right to speak of culpability for the Cambodian killings and look beyond the borders of Cambodia, but it is curious to do so and ignore the communist governments that chose to make Cambodia a base for their war-making.

Frankly, though, the entire political calculus of the Cold War was so morally warped by the death-struggle of the superpowers that I would not care to apply it to any decisions we can make now, freed of that ugly weight. And arguments based on historical comparisons typically are good for more heat than light.

I don’t dispute your main point - that the north would have fought until reunification.

But could a political settlement eventually been achieved? Not in the context of what actually happened but with the clear understanding that the South’s legitimate concerns be taken into account.

Remember, Ho was dead. The chances for reconciliation with the South would have improved over time.

So you are correct in your assessment but I still think we left the South in the lurch and that a little more staying power on our side may have pushed the two sides together politically.

Pipe dream, you say? We’ll never know.

Sorry John, but this is just insane.

You deserve much credit for trying to analyze the situation in Iraq in a clear-headed manner, something so rare amongst your fellow nuthouse inmates.

But you seem utterly unwilling to face the reality of Vietnam.

Whereas we saw the Vietnam war as a proxy war in the greater cold war with the Soviets, the actual people fighting us in Vietnam saw the war as the last chapter in their decades-long war of independence from foreign colonialism.

Just like we Americans would have done if it had been our country, the Vietnamese would not have stopped fighting until we left.

Most Americans began to understand this in the late sixties. Even as early as ‘68, Nixon ran on a platform of ending the war - having abandonded the fantasy of “winning” anything. Although he wasted tens of thousands of American lives, and well more than a million Vietnamese lives in an effort to withdraw “with honor”, the underlying decision, by the government and the people, that the war had been a mistake had long been made.

Most combat troops were out by the end of ‘72, when the war was effectivly over for us.

American culpability in the Cambodian killing fields can only be sustained by reference to the overthrowing of the traditional government by the CIA, and its replacement with a puppet military dictatorship - sparking a civil war that led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge. Yes, the Times is right - it was our involvement in SE Asia that led to these tragedies, not our withdrawl.

What madness is it that proposes that we would have maintained half a million troops in Vietnam, for another 5 years - and then what? Used them to invade Cambodia to stop the KR?

In the end it was the Vietnamese that invaded Cambodia and stopped the killing fields, while the US, under Ford, Carter and Reagan continued to recognize the Khmer Rouge government.

I imagine that the insights you have arrived at regarding Iraq should lead you to understand, on a deep level, how utterly dishonest and manipulative of real-world evidence so many of your colleagues on the right really are. This nonsense revisionism of the Vietnam era is part and parcel of their propaganda. The truth of the matter means nothing to them - these are fantastic arguments put forth for no other reason than to try to leverage some advantage in the arguments of today.

I would advise some careful, dispassionate research and hard thought before repeating the nonsense that the right is putting out.