March 20, 2006

STAND WITH THEM, BUT MAKE THEM STAND ON THEIR OWN:

The way forward for Iraq hinges on the US's way out: Western experts agree that Iraq is not yet lost, but differ on how to withdraw (Mark Sappenfield and Mark Rice-Oxley, 3/20/06, CS Monitor)

[T]o many others, Iraqi leaders won't be forced to make the hard decisions until the security blanket of coalition forces is gone - or at least on its way out. "With the new government, we're going to have to talk tough," says former Defense Secretary Melvin Laird, who oversaw America's gradual withdrawal from Vietnam. "If we don't start moving, we're never going to get them to realize that they have to fulfill their responsibilities."

He contends that South Vietnam fell only when Congress decided to cut support to the South Vietnamese military - two years after the withdrawal of troops. "Let [the Iraqis] know that we will stand with them," he says.


The key is to keep Ted Kennedy from killing this ally.


Posted by Orrin Judd at March 20, 2006 8:43 AM
Comments

So Melvin Laird "contends" that Vietnam was handed over to the Communists in a Dolchstoss by their conscious agents in the Democrat party.

Is their any other way to state the ugly facts of what happened?

Posted by: Lou Gots at March 20, 2006 11:19 AM

No Lou, there is no other explanation. I thought it was a given that the traitors on the left began their attempted coup prior to WWII and continued unabated through the early part of the Vietnam War. If that fool Kennedy hadn't been killed resulting the the chaos of the Johnson and Nixon years, they might have succeeded. That's why Kennedy's assassination is so puzzling. The answer to the classic cui bono question still isn't clear.

The big guy in sky was watching out for his favorite katzenjammer kids because there isn't any other explanation of why they didn't succeed in totally destroying our American culture.

Looking at those pictures of the aging remnants of the anti-Vietnam war crowd who gathered in San Francisco this past weekend reminds us just how horrible that would have been.

Posted by: erp at March 20, 2006 12:09 PM

The vote that ended aid to South Vietnam was shameful, but the indiviual rationales were many. I'm sure there were some malevolent votes due to a sympathy with Communism. Some votes were by people duped by the true nature of the Hanoi regime (that they were really nationalists). But most were probably because of fatigue and war weariness: they just wanted to see American involvement end.

The ultimate reasons for our failure in Vietnam are due to LBJ not being a good war president. Honestly, I think many of Bush's weaknesses as a war president are exactly the same as LBJ. The difference is that Bush does not have as formidable an opponent as the Soviet Union to support the anti-war movement. Plus for all of Rumsfeld's own weaknesses, he is far superior a Defense Secretary than McNamara, another smart man who was not a war leader.

Posted by: Chris Durnell at March 20, 2006 12:55 PM

Chris:

Actually, democrats in Iraq don';t have as formidable an opponent as those in South Vietnam did--Teddy's in the minority now.

Posted by: oj at March 20, 2006 1:09 PM

Chris: Weren't there a lot of votes for the proposition that the North's cause was just and the South's (and thus our's) was unjust?

Posted by: David Cohen at March 21, 2006 8:17 AM

David: No. The votes were for the proposition that "Hell no, I won't go."

Posted by: Lou Gots at March 21, 2006 8:45 PM
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