Must read diary on DailyKos: Iraq is not Vietnam

[Turn CO Blue]

<http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/9/8/12363/18901>

Don't let the title fool you (the title is snark). Not only is the way in which the Presidential Administrations handled each war and the critics stunningly, strikingly similar, you also have to see the side by side pictures...it's just eerie.

It is a long entry with excerpts from Stanley Karnow's 1983 book, Vietnam: A History but for those of you who may find history, especially war history a little dry or boring, it is really worth the read.

Truly this is one of the most outstanding journals/diaries that I have read, and definitely the best comparison between the two wars I have seen.

Here are three snippets from the book excerpts:

(Secretary of Defense) McNamara('s) confidential comments again bore little resemblance to his public remarks. He told reporters that the U.S. forces in Vietnam were inflicting "increasingly heavy losses" on the Vietcong but he informed Johnson privately that conditions were "worse than a year ago." . . . Then he gave Johnson the bad news. By early 1966, he said, Vietnam would (require) mobilizing the reserves and the national guard - putting the country on a war footing, in effect. Otherwise, America could not meet its global security responsibilities.
- Chapter 11, p. 425


. . . (President) Johnson resorted to snide and salacious remarks about (newspaper columnist Walter) Lippmann, even accusing him of aiding and abetting the enemy, and Lippmann responded with equal rancor, privately calling Johnson "the most disagreeable individual ever to have occupied the White House." He also delivered an unusually angry tirade against Johnson in his column of February 3: the president had "never defined our national purpose except in the vaguest, most ambiguous generalities about aggression and freedom," he wrote. "Gestures propaganda, public relations and bombing and more bombing will not work." He predicted that Johnson would eventually find himself "in a dead-end street" unless he revised his Vietnam policy.
- Chapter 13, pgs. 486-7

But not long afterward, when several senators nearly succeeded in restricting (Nixon's) military activities in Cambodia, he decided to stop "screwing around" with his congressional adversaries and other foes. He ordered the formation of a covert team headed by Tom Huston, a former army intelligence specialist, to improve the surveillance of domestic critics. During later investigation into Nixon's alleged violations of the law, Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina called the Huston project evidence of a "Gestapo mentality," and Huston himself warned Nixon that the internal espionage was illicit. Nixon afterward contended, however, that "when the president does it, that means it is not illegal."
- Chapter 15, p. 612

To get to the diary:
<http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/9/8/12363/18901>
Iraq is not Vietnam. Iraq is not Vietnam...
by occams hatchet
---
tcb

[EVDebs]

1. The Huston Plan and MLK jr. They got their man apparently

RFK too for that matter. M/I Complex gets what it wants. Change is difficult for those who don't "improvise, adapt, overcome' without planning ! Gen Zinni said it best, "They've screwed up".