Suddenly, Vietnam becomes a selling point for the Iraq Occupation

More than four years after sending his nation’s military into Iraq, suddenly George W. Bush remembers the lessons of Vietnam:

“Bush to invoke Vietnam in arguing against Iraq pullout”

WASHINGTON (CNN) — As he awaits a crucial progress report on Iraq, President Bush will try to put a twist on comparisons of the war to Vietnam by invoking the historical lessons of that conflict to argue against pulling out.

On Wednesday in Kansas City, Missouri, Bush will tell members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars that “then, as now, people argued that the real problem was America’s presence and that if we would just withdraw, the killing would end,” according to speech excerpts released Tuesday by the White House.

“Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam War and how we left,” Bush will say.

“Whatever your position in that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America’s withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens, whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like ‘boat people,’ ‘re-education camps’ and ‘killing fields,’ ” the president will say.

The president will also make the argument that withdrawing from Vietnam emboldened today’s terrorists by compromising U.S. credibility, citing a quote from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden that the American people would rise against the Iraq war the same way they rose against the war in Vietnam, according to the excerpts.

“Here at home, some can argue our withdrawal from Vietnam carried no price to American credibility, but the terrorists see things differently,” Bush will say.

The White House is billing the speech, along with another address next week to the American Legion, as an effort to “provide broader context” for the debate over the upcoming Iraq progress report by Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander, and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad.

President Bush has frequently asked lawmakers — and the American people — to withhold judgment on his troop “surge” in Iraq until the report comes out in September.

Just a couple thoughts on this hodge-podge of ludicrousness:

1) Bush isn’t “waiting on the progress report” – he’s writing it. And after he writes it, he’s having his career-minded general read it to the nation on Sept. 11 to add to add some drama to the theater presentation.

2) Isn’t it amazing we didn’t hear any invoking of Vietnam in the media blitz that led up to the Iraq Occupation? Those were different times in the U.S., when human rights and civilian casualties weren’t such a big deal to the nation.

3) If you were ever curious what a “Straw Man” fallacy is, but were afraid to ask, this is literally a textbook example – “Here at home, some can argue our withdrawal from Vietnam carried no price to American credibility, but the terrorists see things differently.”

4) If Mitt Romney really is the most “Intellectually dishonest politician in history” than he must be the most intellectually dishonest sentient being in the universe to overtake Bush and crew.

5) It’s a pretty sure bet you won’t be hearing about the lessons of Vietnam as the media blitz to attack Iran and Syria builds.

–WKW