May 9, 2004
EVERYTHING'S CHANGED, WE'RE LEAVING ON THE 30TH:
The War's Lost Weekend (Frank Rich, 5/09/04, NY Times)
JJUST when you've persuaded yourself yet again that this isn't Vietnam, you are hit by another acid flashback. Last weekend that flashback was to 1969. It was in June 1969 that Life magazine ran its cover story "The Faces of the American Dead in Vietnam: One Week's Toll," the acknowledged prototype for Ted Koppel's photographic roll-call of the American dead in Iraq on "Nightline." It was in November 1969 that a little-known reporter, Seymour Hersh, broke the story of the 1968 massacre at My Lai, the horrific scoop that has now found its match 35 years later in Mr. Hersh's New Yorker revelation of a 53-page Army report detailing "numerous instances of `sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses' at Abu Ghraib." No doubt some future edition of the Pentagon Papers will explain just why we restored Saddam Hussein's hellhole to its original use, torture rooms included, even as we allowed Baghdad's National Library, a repository of Mesopotamia's glorious pre-Baath history, to be looted and burned.The Vietnam parallels are, as always, not quite exact. We didn't "withdraw" for another four years after 1969 and didn't flee Saigon for another two years after that. We're on a faster track this time. News travels at a higher velocity now than it did then and saturates the culture more completely; the stray, silent images from the TV set at the gym or the p.c. on someone else's desk lodge in our brains even when we are trying to tune them out. Last weekend, the first anniversary of the end of the war's "major combat operations," was a Perfect Storm of such inescapable images. The dense 48-hour cloud of bad news marked the beginning of the real, involuntary end of America's major combat operations in Iraq, come hell or June 30.
How is it involuntary if we're leaving on schedule?
One nice thing about this war is that younger folk have had a chance to see why we despised the Left so much during Vietnam, as they treat bad news for America as good news for them.
Posted by Orrin Judd at May 9, 2004 8:50 AM"How is it involuntary if we're leaving on schedule?"
oj...have you written your "depends on what your definition of leaving is" piece yet? ;)
Posted by: NC3 at May 9, 2004 12:31 PMthe left is so blatantly disgusting that it makes me want to say they have gone overboard. But, frankly, it has not changed one iota in 15 years. They have been consitently despicable and predictably putrid.
Posted by: neil at May 9, 2004 1:47 PMIt is still bad news for America.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at May 9, 2004 5:14 PMHarry:
For a week or two. By July Abu Ghraib will get the same blank looks as Valerie Palme.
Posted by: oj at May 9, 2004 5:19 PMI find it interesting that, after all the liberal protestations that Ted Koppel's recitation had no political motivation, it took only about a week for another liberal to use it as evidence that we are in another "Vietnam".
It is somewhat reminiscent of the old Clinton-era strategy of deny, deny, deny, followed by admit it but claim it's "old news". The intellectual inconsistency is breathtaking in its audacity, but I can't quite define it in a bumper sticker-worthy slogan. Is it "good cop, bad cop", or "bait and switch", or "team tag", or something else?
Posted by: HT at May 9, 2004 11:16 PMComparing Iraq to Vietnam is simply nostalgia, and I can't believe that it resonates at all with the under-50 crowd.
Further, the comparison can only be done in a cynical or ignorant way, since there aren't any factual similarities - The two conflicts are as different as wars can be.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at May 10, 2004 12:36 AMMichael:
Yes, starting with the fact that one of them was won.
Posted by: Peter B at May 10, 2004 5:23 AMPeter B. --
Vietnam was won by us also. We just chickened out.
We won the war, stuck our tail between our legs and ran away.
The Creation Science types don't have anything on Vietnam Nostalgia when it comes to a Young Earth/Young Universe timeline.
At least the Creation Science types have a history of 6000 years since the beginning of the universe instead of only 36 years since the universe began with QUAGMIRE! QUAGMIRE! QUAGMIRE! QUAGMIRE! VIETNAM! VIETNAM! VIETNAM! VIETNAM! VIETNAM! VIETNAM! VIETNAM! VIETNAM!
Posted by: Ken at May 10, 2004 12:46 PMKen: Which came first... Vietnam or the quagmire? :D
Posted by: Just John at May 10, 2004 2:18 PMOrrin, you may be right about the abuse furor receding, though I wouldn't bet too much on that.
But the question of who's in charge (apparent answer: nobody) isn't going to go away until Bush actually determines on a policy and adheres to it.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at May 10, 2004 3:24 PMHarry:
June 30 they are. End of press coverage and American attention.
Posted by: oj at May 10, 2004 4:02 PM>We won the war, stuck our tail between our legs
>and ran away.
Every time I hear someone get sanctimonious about how running away instead of fighting back is Sooo Morally Superior, I get the same image in my mind:
A Velociraptor screeching "PREY RUNNING! CHASE AND KILL! CHASE AND KILL! CHASE AND KILL! KILL! KILL!"
That's a predator's response to such Moral Superiority. You don't parade around as a Vegan and a Pacifist in front of Kzinti.
Posted by: Ken at May 10, 2004 5:05 PM