Mike Thomas's excellent article. Similarities to Vietnam problem for Bush

[The Backlash Cometh]

I don't usually care for him. He certainly isn't sensitive about minority issues, but on issues which might personally effect him, he gets Democratic leanings. (Maybe that's the key to understanding Republicans. If the government programs directly benefit them, they're Democratic.)

Here's the snippet:

"Is this another Vietnam? Feels a bit drafty here"
<snip>
A friend of mine is a politically apathetic but very conservative doctor.

He recently said that he was registering to vote in the November election. I expected a tirade about how his hatred of John Kerry drove him to it.

Then he stunned me by saying, "We have to get Bush out of there."

I looked across the table at his high-school sons. And then it hit me -- what could be a critical voting bloc in the presidential election: parents from the Vietnam era with teenage boys.

Hell no, they won't go!

This is not a liberal-conservative issue. People may vote the party line because of ideological compatibility and self-interest. But when kids are at stake, longtime allegiances are quickly jettisoned.

more:

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/columnists/orl-locmiket25042504apr25,1,7037752.column

[Lindacooks]

1. I wish somebody would do a poll

asking if your kids were drafted to go to Iraq (no exceptions) if you would still support the war. We need to talk about this more. It's starting to get some media attention, but not enough.

[PATRICK]

2. Get the analogy right

it is the same type of failed leadership. The unjust motivation, the interference of the politicos, the systems failures, the propaganda about patriotism and enemies and soon - the draft- can "vietnamize" any military situation when the simple resistance of the occupied nation makes a democratic facade completely untenable.

The other side of the analogy, Iraq itself- certainly holds a lot of differences, but what "difference" does that make when General Fubar struts in with shock and awe and promptly falls flat on his ass.

These guys couldn't even serve you a ham sandwich at a bar and grill and get it right. It will always taste like baloney.

Those who argue against the analogy prove my point with comical consistency by immediately betraying arguments and attitudes I heard ALL before in the sixties and seventies. These are the people who need to take a break from the past and stop hijacking the future. The point is not Iraq/Vietnam but how much worse the chickenhawk dumbest and most fanatic can top the disasters of the "best and the brightest". Vietnam ruined a sturdy policy of containment and really almost exposed the lies of the Cold War impasse were it not for the surly survival of cognitive dissonance even in defeat. Iraq may ruin the progressive leadership for democracy that the US owned nearly by default and prolong strife and injustice worldwide as a result.

In Vietnam we were losing million dollar planes and our best pilots to get that last truck. We are similarly seeing our magnificent military machine getting ground up in a pitifully worthless hopper which would not even have happened had not Bush imposed a false agenda with matchless incompetence on top of his original invasion.

It is not Iraq or "values". It is the goons in charge hiding behind the flag, dragging us all down. It always has been from the first crime to the last.

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. With reference to your comment regarding shock and awe.

I sincerely believe that they expected to get Sadaam in the first strike -- in that first hour! And I sincerely believe that was the ONLY plan they had going in.

[PATRICK]

4. And history shows

that expectation has been nearly always disappointed. Such an expectation is plainly stupid therefore and the hallmark of amateurs worse than those trying to game victory in Vietnam.