Vietnam comparisons

At every point you think it’s time for GWB to go, like when he assures us that his wrongheaded Grahamnesty program for ILEAGAL aliens makes sense, he starts talking about the defining issue of our day – the war on terrorism – and he makes so much sense you are forced to give him another chance.

Yesterday at the VFW convention in Kansas City, the president delivered another stem winder. He compared successes in Japan and Korea with our current situation in Iraq. He reminded his audience how the naysayers after those conflicts, similar to today, decried attempts to bring democracy to Asians. The argument went that Asians were like sheep in need of a strong dog to keep them from the wolf and lead them to water. Culturally they just were not well suited for democracy.

The president even took on the Vietnam comparisons so much in vogue with today’s Libs. As if just mentioning the word would be enough to discourage otherwise hawkish men to duck under the bed sheets rather than run the risk of defending America. The president confined his remarks mainly to the aftermath of America’s precipitous withdrawal from that conflict. Contrary to what Cambodian war hero John Kerry says, thinks, opines, or fantasizes, there was a rather significant bloodbath in Southeast Asia after America lost her nerve in that region of the world.

But there was another parallel with Vietnam that the president skipped over; that parallel would be messing with an allied government’s leadership. Phony Ben Franklin look alike – except for world’s worse comb over that is – Carl Levin called for the ouster of duly elected Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki. The president did say that the Iraqi Prime Minister is not a matter decided by Democrat senators seeking some political advantage.

The president could have wrapped Levin’s idiocy in with the parallels of Iraq with Vietnam. In 1963 Democrat President John F. Kennedy authorized the removal and assassination of South Vietnamese President Ngo Diem. There is no question Diem was corrupt and ran South Vietnam as if it were an ATM for his own and his family’s benefit. There is also no question that there was a bloody war being fought, Diem had a winning strategy (the strategic hamlet program) and was an ardent anti-communist.

A strategic thinker in Washington, if there is such a thing, might have counseled JFK to tolerate Diem until the communists had been defeated then move him out quietly. Instead they assassinated Diem; South Vietnam’s government was permanently destabilized undergoing several more coups; the North was emboldened by the instability and used the assassination as proof of the South’s puppet status to the US and the war was lost.

Sometimes it’s better to deal with the devil you know than to throw him overboard and deal with one you don’t.