Kumbaya:
Visions of another Vietnam
Visions of another Vietnam are growing —not in Iraq —but in the nostalgic minds of aging boomers employed by the New York Times, ABC News and some of the reporting and feature pages (but not the editorial page) of The Washington Post. Before they completely end their productive years, these now-senior editors, producers and on-air news readers apparently hope to relive their glory days, now 35 years in the past, when they were a part of a great, unwashed movement that undercut our fighting men in Vietnam by sapping the will of much of the American public. The genocide of 2 million Cambodians, thousands of boat people and general calamity in Southeast Asia that followed in the wake of the boomers' "moral" victory over American war-fighting efforts in Vietnam has not deflected them from attempting to repeat their historic triumph. But, of course, when tragic history repeats itself, it comes in the form of farce.
Iraq, unlike Vietnam, is not an impenetrable jungle, but an exposed desert. It does not share a border with a superpower benefactor that can provide it with unending war-fighting supplies. Rather, it is surrounded and materially isolated by the Anglo-American forces that are already completely denying Saddam and his fighting forces the benefit of any re-supply efforts. The Ho Chi Minh trail serving Iraq only runs from 229 West 43rd St. to 47 West 66th St. Unlike Vietnam, where the Pentagon never had a credible theory of victory, in Iraq it is Saddam who has no credible theory of victory. He may be able to delay his inevitable defeat by weeks or a month or two. But, everyday material reality grinds inexorably against him.
During Vietnam, it took the young, golden-bearded, love-making, anti-war boomers four years of steady anti-American efforts to undercut public morale and support. Today, the thin-haired, senior-moment susceptible, aging anti-war boomers at the upper reaches of big media will only have about four weeks to do their worst, while our young fighting men are doing their best. Dream on. Kumbaya.
washtimes.com |
