President Bush to Our Veterans: Iraq is Like Vietnam
Today, President Bush addressed the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention in Kansas City. Instead of taking the opportunity to discuss the urgent issues that are facing veterans today, the president offered a history lesson — and actually compared Iraq to Vietnam. But the last thing these veterans needed was a lecture from such a poor student of history. They remember America’s wars — because, unlike President Bush, they actually fought in them.
President Bush telling veterans about war is like an atheist preaching to the choir. No surprise that he got his facts wrong. But plenty of others are making great arguments about the historical accuracy of Bush’s remarks and their relevance to today’s conflicts. I am more frustrated by what Bush did not say.I have often admonished the president for not addressing veterans’ issues. This speech today represents a new low. After taking credit for increasing the veterans’ budget, even after years of underfunding the VA, the president was strangely silent on the real issues facing new veterans, including naming a replacement for Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson who steps down in October, and implementing recommendations of the Dole-Shalala Commission to fix the nation’s military and veterans’ hospitals. What happened to all the outrage and promises after Walter Reed? The words “Dole-Shalala” were not even mentioned. The Dole-Shalala Commission’s Report set out six clear recommendations to be implemented (most by the president), and now they are gathering dust on a shelf somewhere while the president and Congress are on vacation for the summer.
So if we’re going to talk about the legacy of Vietnam, we need to remember what happens when a nation fails to take care of its veterans. We cannot abandon another generation of combat vets to untreated mental health problems, substance abuse, unemployment, homelessness, and suicide. As President Bush said today, “History does remind us that there are lessons applicable to our time. And we can learn something from history.” Let us learn that the men and women who have fought in Iraq, Afghanistan, (and all wars) deserve to be provided for. Not just used as a backdrop for another presidential photo op.
Paul Rieckhoff is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the Executive Director and Founder of IAVA (Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America), the country’s first and largest Iraq Veterans group. IAVA is a non-partisan, non-profit organization headquartered in New York City.
© 2007 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
Why do so many members of the commentariate seem surprised that bush wants to sell the theory of being stabbed in the back? At least this demagogue isn’t blaming the Jews for the loss of a war, but that doesn’t mean that he’s any less dangerous. I’m a bit disturbed by the numbers of yanks who argue that they oppose bush’s administration claiming that they’re ‘good’ Americans, and yet they miss the fact that there were a large number of ‘good’ Germans who also claimed to oppose hitler. Both the ‘good’ germans and the ‘good’ americans have had the same effect on their country’s leadership. Will it take another massive war with a death toll that makes WWII look insignificant for us to learn again a lesson which ought to have been learned so long ago.
I wonder if Bush had a “Mission Accomplished” banner hung over the beer kegs in the Alabama National Air Guard Ofifciers Mess in 1969?
The lessons taken from the Vietnam war had nothing to do with preventing another war. The lessons learned were supposed to help win the next war. Not where did we go wrong but how do we fix a broken policy. The most important lesson learned by the government was to keep the media away from the war. Don’t let Americans see what their soldiers and airmen are doing and spin the story toward victory. Since it’s a political war the government only has to win on paper. And no matter what the final outcome the troops are the ones who are always harmed, not the politician.
Hoa binh
Just Scum
Namvet, I wasn’t refering to the so called lessons of vietnam, nor really to those of WWII. I was thinking of those of the first world war, you know, the war to end all wars. Fubared by the diplomats who got the world into it, out of it, and came up with the justifications to repeat it.
According to this, George W. Bush said, “History does remind us that there are lessons applicable to our time. And we can learn something from History.”
What have Americans learned from History George? The purpose of recorded History is to learn from past failures and successes in order to accentuate the success and eliminate the failure. In other words, to make sure the mistakes of History do not happen again. To say this quote, of all audiences, to Veterans about a historical failure in foreign policy in regards to Vietnam that YOU have chosen to repeat in Iraq, renders your speech…well to be polite, it just was not appropriate. Of course, as The Decider, you decide what is appropriate. Yes?
Here we have the image of America as ‘better than everybody else, the best government, the best economy, the best, the best of everything. I don’t know how anybody, especially the President of the U.S., could stand in front of a group of veterans while being aware of the fact that those brave and generous souls who served this country well are treated as second class citizens when it comes to the aid and care they need. This fact alone does not in any way substantiate being the being the best at anything. It reflects on this country poorly and does not deliver the raves needed for a super power.
Hey, Paul. Don’t forget all the violent crime some of these Iraqi and Afgan vets are going to be responsible for committing.
It is the big secret that combat veterans tend to have low thresholds of violence, and practiced methods for committing crime.
It is no accident that combat vets often become violent brigans.
Wow man I can remember when the Bush sheep chortled ignorantly at me when I had the nerve to compare Iraq to Vietnam and here’s their hero-un-elect making his own comparisons, albeit false comparisons, between the two wars. And they call the leftys “loony”. Sheesh!
Bush should have told the Vets that the comparison between the wars should start with cowards like himself who avoided the war and the fact that NONE of the top Bush admin stooges has any children serving in THIS war. Then he should have compared the outright LIES used to start them. And perhaps finished with comparing himself as a mass murderer with Johnson and Nixon….
I tell you, some things never change….
When Phil Ochs said “It’s always the old who lead us to the wars, always the young to fall” he was wrong
He should have said “It’s always the rich who lead us to the wars, always the poor to fall”
I wonder if Bush also informed his audience of the fact that, since we Americans left, Vietnam has been doing just fine without us. Or should I say, in spite of us?
Just more Bush ROTC (Run Out The Clock) recruits.
Pretty clever, Vic, and very true also.
Bush stated that we should have stayed in Vietnam. I wonder what he thinks would have been the outcome. The war went on and on and on. The govt of S. Vietnam was miserable, cruel, and incompetent the entire time and N. Vietnam was unrelenting, despite tremendous numbers of casualties. It sure didn’t look like a happy ending was possible. I want to ask Bush:
When do you think the Vietnam War would have come to a “successful conclusion”?
What would have been a “successful conclusion” to Vietnam?
How can we expect such a conclusion given the decades of failure that preceded the US pullout?
How much would a protracted Vietnam war have cost?
What would have been the economic consequences of that? (We already had nasty stagflation as a result of war spending - in Bush’s world it would have been much worse.)
How many more US soldiers do you think would have died if the war was extended?
How might a protracted war in Vietnam have affected US-Soviet relations? (Would the cold war have stayed cold?)
Bush hasn’t addressed any of these questions. I’m not surprised.