Stanley Kutler- Trashing History: Bush and Vietnam

If there is a torrential flood of lies emanating from the White House, know that the University of Wisconsin's Emeritus Professor of Law and E. Gordon Fox Professor of American Institutions, Stanley Kutler, will straighten out the youthful speech writers. From the Huffington Post, Trashing History: Bush and Vietnam:

The good news is that George W. Bush at last has found parallels between his Iraq misadventure and the Vietnam War. The bad news is that he is again writing his own revisionist history. The president is on dangerous ground -- for both wars are based on a bed of lies and miscalculations...

...For four years, Bush rejected any Vietnam parallels with his Iraq misadventure; he now distorts the events of three decades ago to rouse his base and intimidate his critics. Bush needs no Swift Boat warriors; his brigades of speech writers (with probably with no memory of Vietnam) serve just fine...

...Bush is ignoring the reality of the U.S. withdrawal. That iconic image of people clambering onto helicopters hovering over the American embassy in 1975 is misleading. Our war was already over. Richard M. Nixon's policy of "Vietnamization," which allowed for the steady reduction of 500,000 U.S. troops, had begun in June 1969. Nixon realized we could not remain indefinitely in Vietnam and he pursued a policy of training and arming South Vietnamese regulars to carry on their own battle. Four years later, the last U.S. troops had departed.

The South Vietnamese, who, on paper, outnumbered their opponents, were left to their own devices -- and collapsed within three years. The South Vietnamese populace lacked the steel and determination of the North; their government lacked popular support and political legitimacy.

The United States lost the Vietnam War, and Bush cannot bear that basic truth. Some military commentators are quick to assert the Vietnamese never defeated U.S. forces on the battlefield. Perhaps. But the American pursuit of political goals, implemented and insured by military means, failed.

If nothing else, the conflict shows that there are limits to American power. But Bush will not accept this.

The president is citing Vietnam as a usable past to push his own war aims -- but not too far. He repeatedly says that we must stop Al Qaeda in Iraq or we will have to fight them here. Shades of the 1960s "domino theory." We were told then that if the Communists conquered Vietnam, the countries across the Pacific would topple like dominoes. First Thailand and Cambodia would be lost, then the Philippines and Japan. Then Hawaii and, ultimately, the Viet Cong and their Russian and Chinese allies would land on the beaches at La Jolla...

By reciting his revisionist history of Vietnam, Bush is compounding one lie upon another. The lies that were used to engage us in Vietnam and the lies Bush tells today as he draws lessons upon those untruths.

The Bush speech is further proof why one year of United States History should be required in both our high schools and colleges.

Comments

[nonheroicvet]

If Bush and Cheney had shown up in Vietnam, we would have won.