HERBERT: "Vietnam, we are doomed to repeat its agony"

[nostamj]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/17/opinion/17herbert.html

by Bob Herbert

<snip>

Wars are all about chaos and catastrophes, death and suffering, and lifelong grief, which is why you should go to war only when it's absolutely unavoidable. Wars tear families apart as surely as they tear apart the flesh of those killed and wounded. Since we learned nothing from Vietnam, we are doomed to repeat its agony, this time in horrifying slow-motion in Iraq.

Three more marines were killed yesterday in Iraq. Kidnappings are commonplace. The insurgency is growing and becoming more sophisticated, which means more deadly. Ordinary Iraqis are becoming ever more enraged at the U.S.

When the newscaster David Brinkley, appalled by the carnage in Vietnam, asked Lyndon Johnson why he didn't just bring the troops home, Johnson replied, "I'm not going to be the first American president to lose a war."

George W. Bush is now trapped as tightly in Iraq as Johnson was in Vietnam. The war is going badly. The president's own intelligence estimates are pessimistic. There is no plan to actually win the war in Iraq, and no willingness to concede defeat.

I wonder who the last man or woman will be to die for this colossal mistake.

[salvorhardin]

1. Huh -- I saw your subject line

and was reminded of the classic Trek episode with the space hippies.

"Herbert, Herbert, Herbert!"

I think that's my new pet name for anyone involved in this farce of an administration.

[nostamj]

2. well, I added "bob hebert" to the post to clarify n/t

[SoCalDem]

3. Watergate and "life" sucked the energy out of the "VietNam Story"

We, as a country, never really "finished" VietNam.. We shoved it under the rug, and gradually we stomped the lump down to an "ignoreable" size, and just hoped that no one would notice.,.

It should not really surprise anyone that it gets brought up at certain times in our history.

VietNam was about so many things..

Privilege vs poverty
"Freedom" vs communism
The war machine vs inflationary doldrums
free expression vs government thuggery (see Chicago '68)
civil rights
and many more..

It was a "hard" subject, and we americans like everything "easy"..

It will never really be over, because it was a loss, and we do not acknowledge loss easily..

[Jade Fox]

4. Vietnam was also about wide-spread questioning of an American military...

campaign, and the corresponding duty of young Americans to participate in
a dubious war.

This is what the Right is trying to backtrack on and destroy now, and return
us to the mindless "my country right or wrong" thinking that the the critics
of the Vietnam war ended (or so I thought).

We have to fight this. It is important not to let the revisionists win, and
if this means we continue to talk about a war that has been over for
30 years, so be it.

Are you listening, Will Pitt?

[nostamj]

5. maybe there IS a reason for Viet Nam

to be playing so big in this elections?...

[Toby109]

6. I often wonder if this is a major ploy

of the Kerry campaign. Keep Vietnam in the back of the public's mind. Do Americans really want to relive that in Iraq? And I don't think the Pentagon is particularly enamored with Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and the rest of the Neo-Cons. The recent reports I've read suggest that America's salvation may come from the military as scary as that sounds. They don't like to lose either.