Quote:
Originally posted by marichiko
US casualties in Vietnam in 1965 - the first year we entered the war - 512. More than that number have already died in the second round of Gulf fighting. Note that I said at the CURRENT RATE, meaning if this rate were to continue. How about a little historical literacy around here?
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We have the same exit strategy as 1965 Vietnam - just put in more troops. Also Vietnamize (Iraqize) the conflict. (But the Vietnamese and Iraqi soldiers often ran away during a battle). In both wars, the enemy was really the invading nation. Liberating people who did not want to be liberated - as in both wars.
No one believed in 1965 that we would be in Vietnam ten years later - even though David Halbersham's 1963 book "Making of a Quagmire" demonstrated why we would be there. We have an oppurtunity in a few months (November) to avoid being in Iraq for ten more years. We will never leave if American political leaders openly lie. Exactly same as in VietNam when the liar and crook Richard Nixon (and his corrupt VP Agnew) would even attack sovereign nations without a declaration of war. Its called a Pearl Harbor attack.
Do we vote for a President who lied about Iraq and lied about the impending 11 September attacks? Or do we innovate - get rid of something clearly failed to try something new? Do we dare seek a real exit strategy? Do we dare vote out a leader with a long history of outright lying?
Any light at the end of that tunnel? (for those who don't remember - the daily expression in Vietnam). Some are looking through aluminum tubes and saying they see WMDs. But that is not the tunnel nor the light. Just like in Vietnam - same people with different names - they still see a mythical reason in some mythical tunnel. Therefore we still have no exit strategy - just like 1965 Vietnam.
Doonesbury got started by telling us what we now know to be the truth of Vietnam. This administration would rather we don't know who got killed or even how many lost limbs. In Doonesbury, B.D. lost his leg to an RPG. He calls his wife. "Well the good news is that I am finally down to my ideal weight." As Vietnam progressed, these became the daily humor of most popular comic strips. We relive history.
Don't learn history and be doomed to repeat it. History says repeatedly that wars without the smoking gun turn bad. Here we are again because so many hyped the emotion of "right verses wrong" (or doing god's will) rather than first demand the irrefutible fact - the smoking gun. But then so many reading this never even existed during Nam. They just did not appreciate those warnings. History repeats. And just like in Nam, the large media owners (ie Time Magazine in 1965, CBS News in 1967, and now Fox News / Sinclair Broadcasting in 2004) censor news they fear.