Don't know much about history
Whilst on this theme, there's a very good article by Matthew Yglesias in today's Guardian Comment section. Click the title to read the whole thing.
As The Young Turks argue, perhaps Bush embracing the Vietnam defence is the best indication yet that Rove really was Bush's brain. For, as far as defences go, this is a suicidal gear shift.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.
5 comments:
At least one commenter used facts to derail this moonbat.
Matthew Yglesias-
"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."
American policy was that Japan should be a democracy *and* and ally against the Soviet Union. And Japan became both, to America's credit. What is it that the left finds wrong with America wanting allies against the Soviet Union?
"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."
What this idiot calls "meddling" was precisely the reason that Japan became such a success, not despite of it.
"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."
America spend billions of dollars and thousands of lives ensuring countries like Taiwan, South Korea, and the Phillipines had the chance to become the successful democracies they are today. The left needs to get this through their thick heads.
"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."
True. We invaded these countries to defeat our enemies, and then we built democracy.
Statement from the Big Three at Yalta:
"The establishment of order in Europe and the rebuilding of national economic life must be achieved by processes which will enable the liberated peoples to destroy the last vestiges of Nazism and fascism and to create democratic institutions of their own choice."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yalta_Conference
"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."
This is idiotic. Suppose I said that while it is true that the Axis killed millions of people, the Allied powers also killed millions of people and so they have no claim to the moral high ground. Any takers?
"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."
More idiocy. I know I've argued it here before, but I will say it one more time. The Khmer Rouge was not a creation of America, and the crimes they committed are not the fault of America. The KR were leftists/communists, educated and inspired by the French left. While they were still a guerrilla group, they were aided and sheltered by those leftist heroes, the North Vietnamese. They were only able to take power, and commence their murderous campaign, when America withdrew its aid to Southeast Asia. At that point, the Cambodian government no longer had the means to fight them off. It is true that the American intervention in Cambodia led to an increase of support for the KR. But for the left to harp on that, and ignore everything else I mentioned, is disingenuous to say the least. The bottom line is that the American withdrawal of aid, which the left had been clamoring for, directly led to the deaths of millions of Cambodians, not to mention thousands more Vietnamese.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_rouge#Path_to_power
"Don't know much about history" is the perfect title for this article.
Another excellent posting responding to this historical revisionist leftist crap offered by this turd you linked to and others of his ilk.
Am I to take it that you agree with the Bush position that the US should not have left Vietnam?
I don't think I've made any statements that would lead one to draw that conclusion.
I'm asking you a question. You are defending Bush's statement which appeared to imply that the US should not have left Vietnam. Do you agree with Bush? Or is this simply another case of your knee jerk need to defend Bush without thinking through what it is that you are actually defending?
Should the US have left Vietnam despite what happened after they left?
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