Bush's Brain in the superbar?

[mviale]

How about the Cambodia reference in Bush's speech today.

Is  Murf the real brain behind Bush?

[ChicosBailBonds]

How about the Cambodia reference in Bush's speech today.

Is  Murf the real brain behind Bush?

John Kerry was probably spinning today to know he got exposed again so badly.  Millions dead in Cambodia, hundreds of thousands in Vietnam and Kerry says it ain't no big thang.

Good for Bush, great speech

[mviale]

20% of America cheers! 

[Murffieus]

In addition to the millions who died in Cambodia and Vietnam as a result of our pullout of Vietnam 30 some years ago has enboldened terrorists ever since-----just make it hot for the Americans and public opinion will force a withdrawal (Lebanon, Somalia, and now Iraq?). The Vietnam withdrawal is Al Quida's model in Iraq-----and if we leave Iraq prematurely before the job is done, it just makes a tougher more confident enemy the next time around (Afghanistan)!

[ChicosBailBonds]

May I suggest a reading of this editorial today entitled "SAIGON'S GHOSTS"



Speaking to the Veterans of Foreign Wars' convention in Kansas City on Wednesday, President Bush said our soldiers in Iraq wonder: "Will their elected leaders in Washington pull the rug out from under them just as they're gaining momentum and changing the dynamic on the ground in Iraq?"

The president made his most overt analogy yet to the Democratic-led Congress' abandonment of Vietnam in the 1970s, and reminded the assembled veterans of the price paid in blood by so many:

"In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge began a murderous rule in which hundreds of thousands of Cambodians died by starvation and torture and execution," Bush said. "In Vietnam, former allies of the U.S. and government workers and intellectuals and businessmen were sent off to prison camps, where tens of thousands perished. Hundreds of thousands more fled the country on rickety boats, many of them going to their graves in the South China Sea."

He added that "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 comparison is so potent that the Democrats' Senate leader responded to the president's speech the day before it was delivered, after the White House released a preview of some of its content.

"President Bush's attempt to compare the war in Iraq to past military conflicts in East Asia ignores the fundamental difference between the two," Sen. Harry Reid, D-NV, contended.

But placing Iraq and Vietnam side by side couldn't be more apropos. The large Democratic majority of the post-Watergate Congress undermined then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's 1973 Paris Peace Accords by withdrawing U.S. military aid to South Vietnam. Communist North Vietnam took advantage, building up enough superiority to launch a general invasion of South Vietnam.

As Communist tanks rolled near, helicopters rescuing a few lucky Vietnamese from the roof of the U.S. embassy in Saigon became the international image of American humiliation. By 1977, well over a million people were slaughtered by the Communists in Cambodia alone, a fifth of the country's population.

The Islamofascists are banking on us repeating that betrayal. "Osama bin Laden declared that 'the American people had risen against their government's war in Vietnam. And they must do the same today,' " Bush said, adding Bin Laden's "No. 2 man, Zawahiri, has also invoked Vietnam. In a letter to al-Qaida's chief of operations in Iraq, Zawahiri pointed to 'the aftermath of the collapse of the American power in Vietnam and how they ran and left their agents.'

"Zawahiri later returned to this theme," the president noted, "declaring that the Americans 'know better than others that there is no hope in victory. The Vietnam specter is closing every outlet.' "

Fortunately, the Vietnam specter now haunts Democrats in Congress the most, because Americans rightly see that loss of nerve and betrayal of freedom as the country's — and the Democratic Party's — most shameful hour.

[ChicosBailBonds]

20% of America cheers! 

I heard the Democratically controlled Congress was at 18% now while Bush is at 37%.  You might want to get those facts checked again...erh I mean checked the first time ever in your case.

[mviale]

congress is always rated very low - republican or democrat. Its how you feel about the individual

[77ncaachamps]

Unfortunately as this war drags on, Bush and Cheney are too old to "dodge the war"! 

[tower912]

I am reminded of the old joke.   What is the difference between Viet Nam and Iraq?   Bush had a plan for getting out of Viet Nam.    Of all of the lessons our country learned from Viet Nam, the one thing he seizes is the one thing that no one else ever thought of....we left too soon.   Astounding.

[mu03eng]

Tower you are right its astounding......that no one thought of it before.  Right or wrong getting into Iraq, the point is we are there lets finish it.  People talk about the troops dying in vain, they only die in vain if we decide to just leave.  Clausewitz is still correct that war is politics by another means.  This is truly a political/social fight between us and the people we are fighting in Iraq.  If Congress and the public were to get behind the war for even two years and the media were to report fairly we would be worlds ahead of where we are now.  I'm tired of this well its hard lets just leave and we never should have been there in the first place.  Well two wrongs don't make a right.  And of course its hard, war is hard, if it wasn't hard we would do it ALL THE TIME!  The whole point of war is to make things so awlful for the other side that they don't want to wage war anymore and it becomes easier to accept the winning sides point of view than to continue the fight.  We haven't done that yet.

What I blame Bush for is misunderestimating the American public's stomach for this war.  Is it a war we should have fought, I'm on the fence.  Bush should have known the public wouldn't be able to last more than two years.  He further shot himself in the foot by continually trying to temporarily prop up public opinion by saying we are almost done like with the Mission Accomplished sign.  Just stupid stuff, once he was reelected he should have just come out and said its going to take years, lets get use to it.

The lesson of Vietnam is you can't win without support from home, thats the lesson of WWI, thats the lesson of the Crimean War, thats the lesson of the American Revolution.  We are a society of instant gratification these days, we want results NOW, war doesn't work that way.  The lesson of Vietnam is we should/could have won that war.  From a military standpoint we were on the brink of victory, but we were too concerned with public opinion polls to do what was needed.  We didn't bomb the bejesus out of Hanoi and Haiphong until it was too late.  We didn't have resolve as a nation.  That is the terrible lesson we didn't learn from Vietnam.  Bush mistook anger over September 11th as a return to the American resolve of old, in that he miscalculated.  How does giving up and going home help the situation?  Lets finish this thing in Iraq and then reassess where we are at.  Lets finish the job we started, because to leave would be the true tragedy of our life times.  Lets get together and say you know what, I may not like our government, but it is our government, we are in a war that we don't like but we have to finish it because to not has worse consequences then staying for at least another 5 years.  War is ALWAYS winnable, it just depends how much you are willing to sacrifice to win it.  So far the other side is willing to sacrifice more than us, lets change that.

Rant off/

[77ncaachamps]

I guess the easy answer of "We're there now, so let's finish the job" is really a copout since we shouldn't have been there anyway!!!

Why the frick haven't we been in Afghanistan for the past 5 years in stronger force like we are in Iraq actually killing the dude Bin Laden?

So let's spend money on this war. Let's let our infrastructure and economies continue to be affected. Let's continue to underfund education.

Let's continue fighting this war so my kids have a chance to enlist.

Let's continue fighting this war for a government that wasn't started "by the people, for the people" and continues to show a "lack of respect" for it's "liberators".

/rant

[mviale]

Bush and that Brain of his has gotten us into a conflict that has no easy answers.  We will be paying for his mistakes for decades.

That is his legacy

[mu03eng]

How does saying well we never should have been there in the first place help fix the situation now??  Mistakes were made, lets learn and not make more.  I don't care about Bush's legacy, I personally could care less about Bush himself I think he has been relatively useless as a president.  However, that doesn't change the fact that we are fighting a war.  We need to either put all our chips in the pot and win or we need to say naw it ain't worth it and walk away.  If we walk away we are compounding Bush's error by putting us there in the first place.  We, the American Public are the ones who will have to look the troops in eyes and say sorry we didn't let you win, its our fault.  We are the ones who have to accept that we have made the sacrifices and deaths worth nothing.  All this hinges on the following questions for you.


-Do you believe that war is always winnable?

-Do you believe that a war ends when one side decides that the price they are paying is not worth it anymore?

-What would be a victory in Iraq for you?

[Chili]

We, the American Public are the ones who will have to look the troops in eyes and say sorry we didn't let you win, its our fault.  We are the ones who have to accept that we have made the sacrifices and deaths worth nothing. 

Thats funny because I asked the same thing to my buddy who did 2 tours in Iraq with the Army and he said bring em all home. All of his buddies say the same thing.

[mu03eng]

We, the American Public are the ones who will have to look the troops in eyes and say sorry we didn't let you win, its our fault.  We are the ones who have to accept that we have made the sacrifices and deaths worth nothing. 

Thats funny because I asked the same thing to my buddy who did 2 tours in Iraq with the Army and he said bring em all home. All of his buddies say the same thing.

Thats fair enough.  I'm influenced by my own friends and family serving who are tired of the fractured support at home and just want everyone to get behind it so they can get done and come home.  Its been the same story since Vietnam, we do things half assed.  I guess part of what my point is, if we leave now or real soon do we believe Iraq will be ok, and if they won't be ok, will we be all right with what Iraq turns into?

I have no problem being convinced that Iraq was probably a mistake, but do we want to compound it by leaving earlier than we need to?

[Murffieus]

Unquestionably the Dems pullout montra has given aid and comfort to the enemy while hurting our troop morale!

If the Dems win in 2008, they will have to deal with the situation they've created (impediment to victory) so the ensuing bloodbath will be on their hands if they do decide to pullout our troops-----but my hunch is that they won't----that they will be forced to pursue and see the situation through!

[mviale]

Unfortunately murf - these kinds of things hurt all americans - it isnt political win/loss thing.  The dems are just doing what 80% of their constituents are telling them.  Did you notice the last election? - people are sick of this war and upset that we really didnt need to start it. 

[ChicosBailBonds]

I guess the easy answer of "We're there now, so let's finish the job" is really a copout since we shouldn't have been there anyway!!!

Why the frick haven't we been in Afghanistan for the past 5 years in stronger force like we are in Iraq actually killing the dude Bin Laden?

So let's spend money on this war. Let's let our infrastructure and economies continue to be affected. Let's continue to underfund education.

Let's continue fighting this war so my kids have a chance to enlist.

Let's continue fighting this war for a government that wasn't started "by the people, for the people" and continues to show a "lack of respect" for it's "liberators".

/rant

Well 77, why didn't Clinton take out Bin Laden in the first place on the 14 attempts he had?  We can play that game all day if you wish.

/rant

[ChicosBailBonds]

We, the American Public are the ones who will have to look the troops in eyes and say sorry we didn't let you win, its our fault.  We are the ones who have to accept that we have made the sacrifices and deaths worth nothing. 

Thats funny because I asked the same thing to my buddy who did 2 tours in Iraq with the Army and he said bring em all home. All of his buddies say the same thing.

That's funny, that's not what my niece, my nephew and many of their friends say....they're over there RIGHT NOW.

[ChicosBailBonds]

Unfortunately murf - these kinds of things hurt all americans - it isnt political win/loss thing.  The dems are just doing what 80% of their constituents are telling them.  Did you notice the last election? - people are sick of this war and upset that we really didnt need to start it. 

80% of constituents?....since you've been so lax on providing truths in the past, please provide some concrete data that 80% of the people want what you desire.  You'll forgive me for not just taking your word for it. Thanks.

[Chili]

We, the American Public are the ones who will have to look the troops in eyes and say sorry we didn't let you win, its our fault.  We are the ones who have to accept that we have made the sacrifices and deaths worth nothing. 

Thats funny because I asked the same thing to my buddy who did 2 tours in Iraq with the Army and he said bring em all home. All of his buddies say the same thing.

That's funny, that's not what my niece, my nephew and many of their friends say....they're over there RIGHT NOW.

TO each their own. I spoke to son of promoinent person in WI who just got back from Marine's in July and said the troops didnt know what they were fighting for. I guess to each their own. Or else we can get into a pissing match.

[mu03eng]

We, the American Public are the ones who will have to look the troops in eyes and say sorry we didn't let you win, its our fault.  We are the ones who have to accept that we have made the sacrifices and deaths worth nothing. 

Thats funny because I asked the same thing to my buddy who did 2 tours in Iraq with the Army and he said bring em all home. All of his buddies say the same thing.

That's funny, that's not what my niece, my nephew and many of their friends say....they're over there RIGHT NOW.

TO each their own. I spoke to son of promoinent person in WI who just got back from Marine's in July and said the troops didnt know what they were fighting for. I guess to each their own. Or else we can get into a pissing match.

Chili, thats my point.  My friends are saying the same thing, back home they don't seem to want to do this why are we out here?  My friends think it is worth the effort in Iraq but they don't want to bother if no one back home wants to do it.  As I've said before, I think we need to either go all in, or just end it now.  My preference is all in, we have given too much already not to.  Whats yours?  I think September will be interesting, based on the "results" of the surge.

[Chili]

We, the American Public are the ones who will have to look the troops in eyes and say sorry we didn't let you win, its our fault.  We are the ones who have to accept that we have made the sacrifices and deaths worth nothing. 

Thats funny because I asked the same thing to my buddy who did 2 tours in Iraq with the Army and he said bring em all home. All of his buddies say the same thing.

That's funny, that's not what my niece, my nephew and many of their friends say....they're over there RIGHT NOW.

TO each their own. I spoke to son of prominent person in WI who just got back from Marine's in July and said the troops didn't know what they were fighting for. I guess to each their own. Or else we can get into a pissing match.

Chili, thats my point.  My friends are saying the same thing, back home they don't seem to want to do this why are we out here?  My friends think it is worth the effort in Iraq but they don't want to bother if no one back home wants to do it.  As I've said before, I think we need to either go all in, or just end it now.  My preference is all in, we have given too much already not to.  Whats yours?  I think September will be interesting, based on the "results" of the surge.

No you missed the point. While over in Iraq the troops do not know what they are fighting for. There are no concrete goals except victory - which to best of anyones knowledge - has not been laid out. You will here stability in Iraq is victory. Well, that is never going to happen. The ones that are over there proudly serve as it is their job. But, once they are back in the states they didn't know why they were over there.

My personal view is we need to set up perminant military presence there. Like Germany, Japan and Korea.

[Murffieus]

Well if they don't know what they are fighting for then the generals are doing a poor job of preping them, which I doubt very much!

We're fighting so Al Quida doesn't win------ we're also fighting to keep Iranian influence at bay in the area-----we're also fighting ti finish the job of stabalizing Iraq so there can be political progress----but just as important is that Iraq and Afghanistan are the central fronts in the war against terrorism!

Surrender there and the next front is England and the USA!

[tower912]

And then, there are these guys.....
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/opinion/19jayamaha.html?ex=1345176000&en=5a8349a0e944e61b&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss