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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: one_less who wrote (145785)	9/16/2004 3:19:47 PM
From: GST	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I think for McNamara it was knowing that millions needlessly died on his watch because we could not come to terms with the fact that we had made a mistake by going to war in Vietnam -- and that is where the strongest similarity lies with Iraq. By the way, when I say we made a mistake, we actually made a series of interconnected mistakes. It is not, as you have implied, that critics of the war do not see the US as having a legitimate role to play in relation to Iraq and the spread of democracy. It is, as McNamara said, the mistake of acting unilaterally that set us up for failure -- and failure is the only thing worse than leaving Iraq as it was with Saddam. I want Iraqis to be free -- and they are not. I want democracy to have a chance in Iraq, but as we are conducting ourselves it does not. I want the "thugs" you decry to be driven from power and out of town -- but instead their power grows. McNamara saw the destructive power of key policy mistake, and the even more costly effects of escalation of commitment to a bad decision. He has the deaths of millions of people on his conscience.

To: one_less who wrote (145785)	9/16/2004 3:33:49 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Re: I have noticed many men who went over board promoting Viet Nam. There attitude back then had something to do with loyalty to our legacy of winning wars. They became discouraged and apologetic in the seventies. Now the same guys are going over board to apologize for Iraq, out of some misplaced loyalty to their remembrances of Viet Nam... Throw backs to another era, who never seem to be able to grasp the issues of the moment until monday morning. Jewell, you're a man of principle. Why not simply respond to the rationale of such critics rather than resort to labeling them as somehow emotionally unable to respond to the issues of the moment until monday morning? The fact is that many who draw comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam were not for the war in Vietnam at the time and, if fact, may have had no opinion on that war. I think valid comparisons are made because there are some almost undeniable similarities which we have ignored to our great detriment. For instance, we've ignored what we should have learned about the limits of attempting to use overwhelming military power to control a determined resistance that enjoys the support of at least a significant minority of the locals. We've ignored the reality of the almost instinctive "hive" reaction from the people of one culture when the people of a distinctly different culture try to take contol. We've ignored the institutional and human nature reactions of those in our employ who attempt to justify their mistakes with lies, deceptions and red herrings and by so doing compound the problems while delaying a change of course. And we've ignored the very real enormity of the injury, deaths and damage that we cause as a natural consequence of our actions. But there are differences. Here's one; the Vietnamese are a much more forgiving, much less vengeful culture. The Iraqis will remember and revenge themselves for generations.