Don’t Know Much About History
Why is George Bush suddenly making parallels between Iraq and Vietnam? Because he’s preparing to shift the blame for another disaster.
Today, it seems, was “Asian Wars Analogy Day” in the Bush administration, as the president uncorked a whole series of odd historical analogies in defense of his Iraq policy. “In the aftermath of Japan’s surrender,” he reminded an audience of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Missouri, “many thought it naive to help the Japanese transform themselves into a democracy. Then, as now, the argued that some people were not fit for freedom.”
In fact, it seems rather doubtful that any substantial body of opinion actually did argue this about Japan.
Perhaps some people argued that it was more important to the United States that Japan be a reliable ally against the Soviet Union than that it be a democracy. Which, of course, is precisely what American policy was. As former Tokyo CIA station chief Horace Feldman is quoted in Tim Weiner’s new book Legacy of Ashes “We ran Japan during the occupation, and we ran it a different way in these years after the occupation,” ensuring the Liberal Democratic Party a basic monopoly of political power in exchange for deference to American security policy in Asia. Despite this meddling, Japan did emerge from the post-war occupation with the basic scheme of a liberal democracy in place, which was all to the good. Elsewhere in Asia, however, things didn’t work out so well, and countries like Taiwan, South Korea, and the Philippines were subjected to America-friendly military dictatorships that only became democratic decades later as a result of popular protest.
One points this out not to condemn America’s Asia policy of the 1940s and 1950s, but merely to observe that democracy-promotion wasn’t especially high on the agenda. This serves, in turn, as a reminder that the United States hardly invaded Japan (or Germany or Italy for that matter) in order to build democracies. Rather, Japan launched a sneak attack on American soil, Germany invaded Poland, both were hell-bent on world domination, and the allies prosecuted World War II as a fundamentally defensive measure. The contrast with Iraq could not be more stark.
Nor, indeed, could the contrast between homogenous, resource-poor Japan and heterogeneous, oil-rich Iraq be much greater. Indeed, though leading war advocate Paul Wolfowitz demonstrated gross ignorance of Iraq when he testified before congress that the country had no history of ethnic strife, he was showing a keen awareness of the fact that a history of ethnic strife would make the country an unpromising proving ground for gunpoint democratization.
All this, however, was but the appetizer for a shocking embrace of a historically illiterate account of the Vietnam war. “One unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America’s withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens,” Bush said “whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like ‘boat people,’ ‘re-education camps’ and ‘killing fields.’” While it is of course true that people died in South Vietnam following American withdrawal, millions died during the United States’ years of military involvement as well, a great many killed by the American military at enormous expense and with no end in sight. The killing fields of Pol Pot’s Cambodia, meanwhile, were if anything more a consequence of America’s destabilization of the region than of America’s departure.
Unenlightening as Bush’s analogies may be, they do serve as an interesting sign of the times. For years, war-supporters derided any efforts to draw parallels between Iraq and Vietnam as unwarranted, now they’re eager to draw them. The reason, most likely, is that while the hawks lost the war in Vietnam and eventually even lost the debate over the war, they believe themselves to have eventually won the larger political battle as Ronald Reagan embraced Bush-style revisionist accounts of the war in southeast Asia as part of his march to the White House in 1980.
For months now, many conservatives have been fundamentally positioning themselves for the post-war era, readying the arguments that will blame the failure of the venture in Iraq on its opponents rather than its architects. That Bush himself has chosen to join them is, perhaps, on some level the clearest reflection of the reality that the president knows perfectly well that the war is unwinnable, and blame-shifting now the best hope for saving his historical legacy.
Matthew Yglesias is staff writer at the American Prospect and author of an eponymous blog. His writing has also appeared in Foreign Policy, Slate and the New York Times Magazine.
© 2007 The Guardian
Politicians on the far-up, particularly since Reagan, have always unabashedly blamed all failures on their opponents — and have taken credit (even where not due) for anything positive. Bush’s core problem is that he’s got nothing positive to point at.
But he won’t be able to blame it on the other side. Millions of news & blog entries, dozens or hundreds of published books, etc. all testify to some basic problems with his shell-game of blame:
* Something is fishy about the official version of 9/11.
* None of the terrorists, even if you believe the govt. on this one, were Iraqi.
* Saddam served at the pleasure of the West from the get-go.
* Iraq posed no threat to the US.
* The photos of Abu Ghraib.
Obviously there will be an attempt to shift blame, as there always is in politics. But it won’t stick this time — even if the Democrats jump hand over fist to accept all the blame.
The Vichy Democrats had nothing to do with the Iraq war.
From now on “W” should stand for “Worst” as in “Worst President in American history”. Please repeat it, spread it around to knock down any efforts to rehabilitate his terrible legacy. Let this big “W” be central to understanding this disgrace’s place in history. May the “W” symbol be used as a convenient shorthand for future generations to understand his legacy.
Why should anyone care what the Worst president says anymore, except to rebuke him for his latest litany of lies, to hold him up as an example of how not to govern? The most corrupt, most evil, war-mongering, most secretive, ruthless, intellectually-bankrupt, arrogant regime in American history. If this doesn’t lead to America’s ruin I don’t know what will.
Wasn’t Bush supposed to be a history major in college (not that anyone has ever lauded his academic credentials)?
jj
So now, after denying the analogies between Iraq and Vietnam in the early days of the invasion and occupation, President Bush is making them himself? But what does it mean to be “like Vietnam”?
Is it
a) difficult war
or
b) unjust war
or
c) both a and b
Both Bush and his critics seem to be using (a) as their definition. Meanwhile most of the western world has been laboring under the assumption that the US bought into the consensus that war was the last resort to be used only in self-defense or with at least the approval of the UN security council which the US dominates. I think a lot of pro-US illusions have been shattered. It’s disappointing really.
Bush feigns compassion for the citizens of America’s victim countries? Ha ha ha ha!! What an absolute fraud! He has killed a million brown people in Iraq, so why the crocodile tears? Moreover, if he was that concerned, why did he not go to Vietnam and deliver some blows himself against the enemy? However, the average dingbat American citizen will probably be suckered in by the Vietnam/Cambodia argument and this amoral politician has nothing to lose. It’s sick.
Of course, since this article was in the “dreaded” French press it will be vilified as anti-Americanism or Bush hater! Good thing similar stories have been in the UK and German press today.
Sorry, put the comment under the wrong article!
Bush doesn’t need to know history. To him, history is for poor people. It’s pretty clear he has reached the bottom of the barrel of excuses for why we are not winning and why we need to continue not winning. Don’t forget that George is a politician and that this is a political war. He isn’t making these speeches to get the support of the American people. He’s speaking to his choir. What happens militarily in Iraq isn’t of major concern to the White House. Dead Americans and certainly dead Iraqis don’t matter. George has to get that oil bill passed. George is fronting for all the big oil supporters and it’s their support that he needs. If they can put together a new government that will agree to sign the new oil law, then George will announce his political solution to this political war.
Hoa binh
In basic training in the Army in 1967, on the very first day, my platoon Sgt told us wide eyed young troopers, “that he would never step on our dicks, you’ll step on your own dick!” in other words your fuck-ups belong to you and you alone…seems W is trying the immpossible…to un-step on his own dick.
Jager
I seem to recall that “resource poor” Japan launched its sneak attack on the USA because it was starved (through well-deserved sanctions) of one resource in particular - clue: three letters, begins with O.
Bush might have gained more knowledge and understanding of the history of VietNam if he had been there, but then again maybe not. He appears to rewrite history on a daily basis, so his version (if he had actually had the nerve to go there in the first place) would undoubtably fit whatever his immediate agenda should happen to be.
namvet: I agree that the “Oil Revenue Sharing Agreement” is their endgame wish, and in this, as in everything else, they have miscalculated. They trotted this “benchmark” out right after the demoralizing November ‘06 election. It is blackmail: “you want us to leave? then give us your oil!”
Please do not act as if Bush were a sentient human being. You give him some small dignity if you do so. We are watching a mindless, selfish, pet monkey dance and sing for his corporate masters. These corporations, who would own everything in the world, have speechwriters that put words in the monkey’s mouth. Nothing is supposed to make sense.
well, as i just read somewhere else here on the internets: bush knew how to get out of vietnam, but he doesnt know how to get out of iraq. his people are trying to replay vietnam, hoping this time it will have a happy ending, and not wind up with impeachment…. oh wait.
“…and blame-shifting now the best hope for saving his historical legacy.”
He can blame-shift all he wants to, but unless the Pentagon’s invented a new amnesia ray that also erases all recorded history for the past seven years, his historical legacy is already as solid as granite: worst, lying, thieving, murdering unelected occupant of our White House in history. Only someone who’s so mentally deranged that he believes some God speaks directly to him would also believe he’ll be remembered as one of the great leaders who was undermined by those damn liberal hippie media Christian haters.
Oh, right…
jesusofjonesboro,
remember, laura the librarian prolly did his essays, and generous donations from poppabush maybe helped the sycophants in charge look the other way or pad the grades. Just a theory. That class of people is on top not because they worked hard but because they know how to get others to work hard for them. Mmm, how hard would it be to get a copy of W’s report cards? Is no one curious? Heheh, I’ll show him mine if he’ll show me his.
It is simple, W said it. Therefore, it is wrong.
When people objected to the invasion of Iraq, comparing it to the war of aggression against Vietnam, Bush and Cheney and all the rest kept saying: this isn’t Vietnam. I bought a button before we invaded Iraq that said: Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam. Couldn’t have expressed it better myself. You invade a country, try to force a government on people that they don’t want–they hide in caves, come out and shoot you and run back into caves and holes or blend in with the population. You work along side of someone, only to discover he has been working for the other side all along because THEY DON’T WANT YOU AND THE PUPPET GOVERNMENT YOU SAY THEY MUST HAVE. Iraq sure seems a lot like Nam to me, and I was never there.
If Bush had cared about Vietnam and what was going on there, he would have done something about it. Instead, he partied in Montgomery, Alabama and worked on campaigns for Republcans, apparently attending to Guard commitments when it didn’t interfere with his “real” activities. Meanwhile poor boys from the poor side of town came home in body bags or crawled through the mud and the blood and the mind fields. Yep, W, tell us all about it you rich sniffling Harvard brat. Like Anne Richardson said: poor George born with a silver foot in his mouth.
Can you blame the teachers at Harvard for letting him through college? His daddy has been involved in politics and the CIA since way back at the Kennedy assassination, and is a member of Skull and Bones like Jr. I’m sorry but Skull and Bones reminds me too much of Satan and Jr. too much of spawn of Satan. He doesn’t have those neurons in his brain that allow for empathy–you know, those neurons that monkeys have that allow them to feel compassion for other monkeys when they hurt, etc. and which scienctists believe give us the ability to have feelings for others. W just doesn’t have ‘um. Any idea how he lost them, anyone? Or was it a birth defect????
More malignant Bushist mirrorspeak.
Holymoly, I bought that button,too. I got in trouble for wearing it to work because a Vietnam Vet coworker didn’t like it. It upset him! Of course my Vietnam Vet husband thought it was quite appropriate and that’s why I wore it as often as I could. Had to stop, though, ’cause I was hurting the guy’s feelings. Haven’t asked him now, what he thinks since he’s a real GWB WarSupporter. Bet since GWB now compares the two wars I could wear the button again!!
Pure and simple scum. Not human — just scum. In democracy as in biology, the body (even the body politic) has an immune system that recognizes invasive and predatory life forms that live off thriving organs that give life to the body. This frat boy of a man and his little, black-hearted buddies thrive off living off of our collective body and privatize it making thier own. Welcome to “Bush World” — where we are schooled and programmed to never mind — just shop until you drop — where history is re-created to suit the teller of “history” — and where, if you do mind about the bigger picture you are endlessly told to look the other way or be afraid, very afraid. Wasn’t the pursuit of democracy fun — when we used to pursue it?
George Bush’s song should be: “Don’t know much about anything”.
lover of peace: It is hard to face up to the fact that you’ve been used by your own country. Therefore, a lot of Vietnam Vets are in denial and still like to think they were “saving the world from communism.” A lof of these soldiers will come back believing they gave it all for democracy for Iraq. A lot will face reality, though, and will go to work to try to prevent the next bunch of kids from being duped. It is like the folk song: When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn? I can understand Bush being power hungry and crazy, but what happens to the collective memory of the whole country? Fool me once….and all that. A lot of people are worse than the Nam Viets when it comes to denial, though. They still think browned skinned guys with boxcutters brought down three buildings and hit the Pentagon on 9-11. Seems like we all just like to be fooled. Like that movie “The Prestige” says: “you don’t really want to know, do you? You don’t want to figure it out?”
A major irony: it was after leaving Vietnam & in not engaging in such enterprises that the US regained a good deal of the prestige it had lost from 1964-1975. Carter took Brzezinski’s advice & began funding the anti-Soviet forces in Afghanistan to burden the USSR with a Vietnam-style conflict.
The moment US forces were completely withdrawn from Iraq, the US would cease hemorhaging support; it would take about half a decade for the global populace to begin to look at the US as a lawless power, if a moderate, accommodating, internationalist outlook governed policy. So while the goal of the antiwar movement would accomplish a short-term good, it would accomplish a long-term evil, of restoring some of the lost status (if not all of it) of US institutions.
But it looks as if that won’t occur; the political establishment as a hwole is completely committed to the terms & relations of the conflict as defined by BushCo.
Wasn’t it Hitler that used Germany’s WWI defeat to stir its populace into creating WWII.?
Question? I wonder if Bush ever hung wallpaper?
Hey Folks,
Bush’s comments weren’t directed at you. He doesn’t care about you. He was talking to the multitudes of historically ignorant Fox drones and news skimmers in the political center who sway in the breeze.
Personally, the Japan analogy makes me chuckle. Sometimes things are so stupid they’re funny.
For those interested in a psychological analysis of warmongering, I have recently completed a 10-minute online video entitled “Resisting the Drums of War.” It examines how the Bush administration has promoted the misguided and destructive war in Iraq by targeting five core concerns that often govern our lives–concerns about vulnerability, injustice, distrust, superiority, and helplessness. Looking ahead, the continuing occupation of Iraq–or an attack on Iran–will likely be sold to us in much the same way. The video examines these warmongering appeals and how to counter them. It’s available for viewing HERE.
Bush, a historian? That is like giving Inspector Clouseau (Pink Panther Character) the Nobel Peace Prize. Please forgive me, I am trying to hide my chuckling like Inspector Dreyfuss.
SPIKE and CLEMSY: You make good points about who Bush directs these half-assed comments at. His “leadership” reminds me of the writings of Eugene Ionesco who was part of a literary movement known as “theater of the absurd.” In one play, Ionesco mocks how the crowd fawns over its chosen leader by depicting the stupid actions of the leader and how the crowd reacts. It’s the behavior mod equivalent of The Emperor’s New Clothes, but as John Dean has intelligently chronicled, there is a startingly large percentage of our population all too ready to grant homage to a father figure/leader, as their psychology inclines them to worship authoritarianism. In this type of thought process (or absense of one), whatever the leader says or does IS law… they really think it makes sense to have a decider. Since many in this ilk are not particularly bright, have probably never entertained any original thoughts, have a poor recollection of history and less exposure to what our Constitution actually demands, fascist-style leadership dressed up as a FIRM president poses no basis for a disconnect. If a nation gets the leadership it deserves, there are grounds for dividing our land into several segments, so that dummies can get the leader they ‘deserve’ and the rest of us choose something a bit more elegant and life-supporting.