"Bush's analogies are so historically wrong...It does make him a very dangerous man for all of us"

[dajoki]

History, by George
http://www.theage.com.au/news/in-depth/history-by-george/2007/08/23/1187462435439.htmlAugust 23, 2007 - 8:33PM


AS AUSTRALIA'S defence minister during the Vietnam War and its prime minister when a flood of boat people arrived, Malcolm Fraser has a much different historical view of that conflict than US President George Bush.

Fraser says the Vietnam experience left him convinced that no Australian government should ever again commit troops to a major war as an ally of the United States unless it could place a senior minister in Washington to closely examine US policy and strategy.

<<snip>>

"George Bush's analogies are so historically wrong that it just makes you wonder: how can such a man ever get into that position? It does make him a very dangerous man for all of us," the former PM says.

"The links he's making are historically inaccurate. It ought not to be within the capacity of a political leader, and certainly not the American President, to be so grossly misleading."
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Christopher Allbritton
Beirut, Lebanon Aug
23 2007
http://www.spot-on.com/archives/allbritton/2007/08/did_he_really_just_say_that_1.html

Did He Really Just Say That?

This week, President George W. Bush stood up before the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and unspooled a whole lot of odd analogies to make the case that we need to stay in Iraq for... well, forever, I guess. I've not been in Iraq for more than a year but it's still a central focus of my reporting here in the Middle East. So, this week, let's step away from Lebanon -- which is depressing anyway -- and focus on Bush and his fantasies about Mesopotamia.

Because some days he makes it just too easy.

<<snip>>

"One unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps,' and 'killing fields,'" the president said.

Really, it's hard to know where to start.

<<snip>>

And finally Vietnam. In one speech, Bush had managed to drag out the knuckleheaded, right-wing argument that if only we'd stayed in Vietnam a little longer, we'd have won that sucker. If only the media and Democrats hadn't been so hell-bent on undermining the troops.

<<snip>>

And the killing fields of Pol Pot were not in response to the U.S. leaving too early. Pol Pot came to power and started his murderous rampage because of the destabilization of the region brought on by the U.S. staying too long. Furthermore, the Khmer Rouge were eventually crushed by, yep, the Communist Vietnamese in 1979. In much the same way, the war in Iraq is creating more terrorists who are killing more innocent civilians. Again, apt analogy, just not the way Bush intends.

[dajoki]

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