Vietnam to Iraq -- Still Dying in Vain

What Bush and his extreme right-wing allies don't want Americans to remember is that it was the American war in Vietnam that made the Khmer Rouge such an irresistible power in Cambodia. Before the U.S. ground troops poured into Vietnam in 1965, there was no armed struggle by the Cambodian Communist movement. It was only because of the spillover of the U.S. war between 1965 and 1969 that they were given the opportunity to contest for power.

U.S. B-52 attacks and ground operations against the Viet Cong base areas in South Vietnam pushed the Viet Cong troops across the border into the jungles of Eastern Cambodia. That, in turn, destabilized Cambodia's economy, as the Viet Cong troops purchased an estimated 40 Cambodia's rice exports on the black market. That in turn led the Cambodian military to use force to get rice from peasants at artificially low prices. The Communists in Cambodia quickly took advantage of that situation to launch an armed uprising.

Even after four years of war in Vietnam, however, the Khmer Rouge were far from being able to contest for national power in Cambodia. In 1970, they had an estimated 2,400 to 4,000 guerrillas, few of whom had modern weapons.

This is where the story is full of bitter irony. Had Richard Nixon chosen to negotiate a quick end to the war, the Vietnamese troops would have left Cambodia, Sihanouk probably would have remained in power and Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge would probably have remained a footnote to history. Instead, however, Nixon opted for four more years of war, and in order to gain time politically, he invoked the threat of a "bloodbath" in Vietnam if the United States were to withdraw prematurely.

That was a completely phony issue for which Nixon and Kissinger did not have a shred of evidence. But Nixon's decision against peace in Vietnam set in motion another new dynamic that made the postwar massacre in Cambodia inevitable.

When Sihanouk's right-wing opponents ousted him from power in March 1970, it may or may not have been with the explicit encouragement of the Nixon administration. The full story has yet to be written on that question. But Nixon did nothing to try to reverse a process that could only result in Cambodia being completely engulfed in war.

After just two years of extremely heavy bombing by the United States of the vast Khmer Rouge zone of Cambodia, that movement had exploded to some 50,000 troops and was able to go on the offensive. By then, nothing except a massive number of U.S. ground troops in Cambodia indefinitely could have stopped the Khmer Rouge victory.

It was the Nixon's geographical escalation of the Vietnam War itself -- not of the success of the antiwar movement or Congressional fatigue with war - that produced that outcome.

And it is the impending geographic escalation of the Iraq war - into Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and of course always into Palestine - that threatens a holocaust in the Middle East.

We all KNOW what they're going to do yet we do nothing to stop it.

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What matters is making the stand. Eleonai Israel

Ask not, what Mike Gravel can do for the people of this campaign, but what the people of this campaign can do for Mike Gravel. Unionmillwright

The Bush WhiteHouse is relying on short-term memories, and historical revisionism to argue that (in essence) The Vietnam war failed because of premature troop withdrawal and that Iraq will fail should we impose a troop withdrawal deadline.

 Let's look at some important facts: The Vietman War was started to halt the spread of Communism in Asia. The 40 year Cold War was waged to halt/destroy/discredit Communism and hail Capitalism as the superior economic/political form of governance. Richard Nixon was elected in 1968 with the promise (which he broke) of ending the Vietnam War. The last American troops finally pulled out in 1975 under Ford.

Its hypocritical that the same Republicans (i.e. Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush) who have granted the biggest Communist country in the world (China) "Most favored Trading Partner" status while deporting American jobs and technology out of our country in favor of toxic products, and ignoring persistent human rights violations, can claim that the Vietnam war was a failure.

Why?  Because their policy of favoring free trade with Communist China over Capitalist America is in direct contradiction with their fight against Communism as the evil force against good Capitalism. By arguing that Vietnam was lost and fell into the Communist North Vietnam contol, because of premature American troop withdrawal, their default position is still that Communism is evil. Yet, their actions favoring China against America and her workers shows an unreconcilable contradiction in their words. 

Vietnam as a military conflict was unwinnable as is Iraq. Why? Because it was impossible to distinguish friend from foe. A foreign military presence in any foreign country over a period of time develops into a perceived occupation even among friendly nations. This is human nature and has been demonstrated from Beirut to The Phillipines, Vietnam to Afghanistan, Spain to Palestine.

In Iraq, American troops (by their very presence and fighting) are creating chaos, misery and destruction of the country and its people. The dream of paradise with 70 virgins grows ever brighter and more heroic to suicide bombers.

It makes no difference how much technology or time you spend attempting to control conflict when people are literally ecstatic to blow themselves up for both a higher cause (resisting the occupation) and entering heaven's rewards for Jihadist warriors.

The United States has no right, obligation, duty, or responsibility to intervene in the sovereign affairs of other nations who have not declared war on us.

The smartest solution for our country is not more useless foot dragging and delay, but the immediate removal of all troops and equipment from the middle east. America should not police the Iraqi civil war nor can it ever be successful at establishing an imperial presence on foreign lands in foreign cultures.