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Audacity of Truth
President now ‘accepting the comparisons of Iraq to Vietnam?
Tigerhawk cuts through the media and lefty blogger spin on recent comments the President made about violence in Iraq in comparison to the Tet offensive in Vietnam.
PM Update: It’s absolutely appalling to see how much dishonesty the media is displaying in their reporting of this story. Tammy Bruce nails their dishonesty here (hat tip: Bak):
The left love those days because they caused this nation to fail. It was their Golden Years. Jane Fonda cavorting with the enemy. Walter Cronkite telling us the war was lost, night after night. John Kerry returning to gleefully slander our troops. The perpetuation of the Vietnam lie is also what today’s enemy counts on. The Islamist enemy knows it can only win the war with the help of American media. and media worldwide. Fascists know where they can get support, and while it will never be by choice of the majority of any people on Earth, it will always be with the worldwide left, and their only true weapon–control of worldwide media.
Yep, and something I’d like to add to that is that if you’ve done any studying on how the media covered the Vietnam war on the whole, you’ll understand why the media today feel so emboldended about reporting negatively on the war in Iraq. They figure they were able to aid in the US losing one “wrong war” and they feel they can do it again with the Iraq war. The media has an obsession with Vietnam. It was the first war they covered during and after the whole peace/love/harmony movement we had going on here in the US at the time of the ‘nam war and accordingly, they reported on the war from a decidedly anti-war angle, which stirred up already high anti-war sentiment that spilled out onto the streets, and influenced not only our politicians in Washington, but – more importantly and for the worse – boosted the morale of the enemy. As we now know, the media’s role in the shaping of opinions on Vietnam had disastrous consequences for our troops abroad, as well as America’s reputation world wide.
Democrats and the media love to accuse the President and his war cabinet of ‘not learning the lessons of Vietnam’ but I think a mirror would be quite handy to hand to these people next time they make such an accusation because it’s Democrats and the media more than any other group of people who have failed to learn the lessons of their anti-war rhetoric and biased reporting back during the time American troops were fighting in Vietnam.
I’ve posted the following quote before, and will do so again – it comes from PAVN Colonel Bui Tin from an interview he did with the Wall Street Journal, which was published on August 3rd, 1995:
Q: Was the American antiwar movement important to Hanoi’s victory?
A: It was essential to our strategy. Support of the war from our rear was completely secure while the American rear was vulnerable. Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9 a.m. to follow the growth of the American antiwar movement. Visits to Hanoi by people like Jane Fonda, and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses. We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a red Vietnamese dress, said at a press conference that she was ashamed of American actions in the war and that she would struggle along with us.
Q: Did the Politburo pay attention to these visits?
A: Keenly.
Q: Why?
A: Those people represented the conscience of America. The conscience of America was part of its war-making capability, and we were turning that power in our favor. America lost because of its democracy; through dissent and protest it lost the ability to mobilize a will to win.
Who helped ensure that sure those anti-war sentiments increased higher and higher, which put more and more pressure on our politicians to advocate withdrawal from Vietnam? Who made sure the news was saturated day in and day out with anti-war sentiment so much to the point that you knew about the violent anti-war protests here, Hanoi Jane’s picture with North Vietnamese troops day, and John Kerry’s testimony about alleged attrocities our troops were enaging in? Who embellished what was going on in Vietnam to make it sound worse than it actually was? Answer to all of the above: the mainstream media with the help of anti-war Democrats like Hillary Rodham, Bill Clinton, John Kerry – just to name a few.
And they’re trying to do it again today with Iraq. The Iraq/Vietnam comparison has been thrown out there even before the Iraq war even started. I can remember that about three days into the war, when we were first starting to hear stories about troops being killed or captured, the usual suspects started wondering if this was going to be the ‘next Vietnam.’ The same thing happened in the opening month of the war in Afghanistan. All wars, to the media and Democrats, are viewed through the prism of Vietnam. The first sign of bloodshed that an American soldier suffers means the war is ‘turning into Vietnam.’ Once that feeling really takes root, there’s no turning back and everything negative that happens in a war is spun into ‘being just like Vietnam.’ It’s the defeatist mentality at its worst.
The Dems and the media are not stupid when it comes to understanding how to go about shaping the opinions of the American people: they know America remembers the Vietnam war, the tens of thousands of American soldiers we lost as a result of that war, the daily drumbeat of negative headlines and images from that time, and they know the impact it all had on war support here at home. They are fully aware of the power they have to influence the American people one way or the other and they couldn’t be more happy right now that the President has supposedly joined them in their routine paralleling this war with Vietnam, because the President supposedly ‘agreeing’ with them means he might come around to ‘acknowledging’ that Iraq war is lost, and that we should withdraw. It would be a defeat for a US president and America all over again, and would once again ‘prove’ to the world that America has ‘no business asserting its power’ in other countries – unless it’s a country the UN favors intervention in, of course.
They were ’successful’ regarding Vietnam. Let’s hope that their blatant dishonesty and one-sided coverage of the war in Iraq doesn’t mean they’ll be ’successful’ with the Iraq war, too.
(Original post posted at 9:57 a.m.)
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In other words, he’s making the same “comparison” that conservatives have been making all along, the only way we can lose this is if our own 5th column of whiners and bedwetters cause the war to be lost politically and emotionally by lying and whining and protesting and basically doing the job of the terrorists by acting against our country’s interests. But suddenly this becomes news because they can shriek and spin that “Bush says Iraq like Vietnam.” All the while not grasping the fact that yes, just like Vietnam disloyal Americans are willing to undertake the heavy lifting our enemies can’t do by stabbing us in the back.
Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, now that’s an accomplishment to be proud of!
Nice to see the MSM has still not figured out that they are part of the problem. Tet was an American victory, but the press played it up as an American defeat. So now that Bush – unwisely!!!! – allowed that there may be some parallels with Tet, and the violence in Iraq, the media AGAIN sees it incorrectly.
Crap! I’m so tired of this lunacy!
- benning, the Left wing of the Dems, in concert with the lame-stream media, are trying to stampede Conservatives prior to the elections, because whether they want to admit it or not, it’s anything but in the bag for them and they know it. Any Right side bloggers that let that happen are whimps in my book.
- There certainly are apropos parallels to VietNam, but not the ones the SP’s would ever want to talk about. Min admited in his memoirs that after TET he was ready to throw in the towel and sue for peace, but he took heart watching the Marxist underground devide American’s, and that gave him the steam he needed to carry on. The Left continues on in its campaign to change our Republic to a soft-Marxist Socialism, but until they can win elections it’s all just a lot of smoke and noise.
- Bang
Benning,
You’re right it’s pure lunacy. The frickin MSM and alot of democrats in congress have gone out of thier way to make things hard on this administration during a time of war.
It’s completely idiotic, political and yes, in my opinion, unpatriotic. Large portions of the MSM have been rooting against this president since the day he took office.
Their negative rooting has carried on through every situation he has had to deal. I think he has had alot to deal with. The MSM is always trying to trip him up.
The Joe Wilson/Valerie Plame situation was ridiculous. Blaming Bush for Hurricane Katrina? Saying 9/11 was an inside job? Getting all over him about the Tsunami? Dan Rather and his forged documents.
How low can the media go? I think Walter Kronkite might take the cake for misreporting the TET offensive to advance his journalism career. Or maybe Bill Keller and the NY Times for reporting on our money tracing or eavesdropping programs.
Bill Maher and KO disgust me. I could go on, but you all know what I’m talking about.
There’s only four “thruthiness’s” anyone need’s to know about the whole VietNam saga.
1) – Starting with Eisenhower, and on into Kennedy’s administration, the whole point of state department/adminsitration policy was “staunching the spread of world wide Communism”. That’s the sum total of it. Period.
2) – After Kennedy’s assasination, and because the Russians had achieved a sort of nuclear “first strike” viability they might actually be foolish enough to try, the “MAD” initiative was added to the national policy, as an absolute, do or die goal. A lot of the “race to the moon” and NASA technical developments, went into the MAD initiative. Basically in a way we went to the moon to insure our survival here on old mother earth.
3) We had to stay in Vietnam into the early 70’s until the nuclear sub-fleet could be deployed and MAD firmly established, stale mating Russia, and China, and stopping the advance of Communism. It’s a damn tragedy it took us that long because it cost a lot of American lives, but we really had no choice.
4) It worked. after that Communism never again advanced a single inch anywhere in the world, and eventually Russia collapsed, and China had no options, outside of modernization
- Nixon never really understood any of that, spending most of his time mumbling over his “enemies” list, and fighting an empty fools game with the American Left, all of whom also had their heads up their rear ends, while our State Department kept it’s head down and just went right ahead, carrying out the work of Kennedy and Eisenhower, while the insanity swirled around them. Forget Johnson, he was aa ego-driven small town Mayor in a National position, basically treading water, while the developments went on apace.
- Bottom line. All that energy bringing down Nixon, exerted by the Left, was a fools errand.
- So there you are. If you know those four facts, you know more than 95% of our population. Not pretty, but truth seldom is.
- Anyway, thats just a small part of what “the Left doesn’t know”, because their poly-sci profs, and SDS weatherman didn’t know it either. Imagine how much more effective their Marxist campaigns would have been if they only knew the truth.
- When you realize that the “VietNam era purpose” was completely different than most people, including the majority of our politicians thought, it’s a lot easier to view the efforts of the Left, and what their real agenda is, and even easier to thwart it. the Doom and Gloom is over-hyped, and has a purpose also. We don’t have to buy into it. It’s entirely up to us. We have a choice. We can turn tail and run, letting a loud obnoxious anti-America minority turn America into Euro West, or just say “NO!”.
- Bang
Tammy Bruce nails the media for their lying on this topic.
Bang,
My understanding is that Polaris-missile-carrying submarines were deployed in the early 1960s. The silo-based Minuteman was also deployed during this period. Why would these two weapons systems not have been adequate to deter any Soviet first strike?
As with everything david there is a timeline. As with military planning at the Pentagon and conveyance that is a timeline also.
You said it ST.
Also, In my humble opinion their unbalanced coverage gives aid and comfort to the enemy.
The Minuteman I program was fully delivered by 1965 and by 1972, the Minuteman III was delivered. As they had already upgraded to the Minuteman III a mere 7 years after delivery of the Minuteman I, I’d say the Pentagon felt they didn’t have an adequate deterrent to a Soviet strike.
david- I won’t go into the history here – it’s available on the net in abundance…the pre-Trident polaris weapons were limited in several regards, and coupled with the improved soviet ASW did not give us ironglad MAD. The last in the Polaris ULMs and ULMsII were replaced by the first Tridents, which sealed the deal, coupled with the order for the first “Boomer” subs, the Ohio, which was launched in ‘79. The early tridents in the 72-78 time frame covered us well enough until the advanced sub-fleet could be launched.
- Tinpot despots all over the world hate the existance of our fleet. Thats one of the reasons Bin Laden went the way he did, a distributed harder to hit approach. None of the other Dictatorships could move on us after Trident was fully deployed by 73/74. The update in ‘79 with Ohio class boats carrying 24 Mirved missles each, it would have been absolute suicide. It wasn’t just the boats, but the weapons upgrades as well. We can all kiss our lucky tushes that Eisenhower and Kennedy knew what they were doing, and the State Department ignored all the craziness of that time.
- Bang
Bang, you left out one important event; the bearded dictator-darling-to-this-day of the left that allowed Soviet missiles in his Caribbean fiefdom in ‘62, aiming at us! Everytime I see a likeness of his former failed “Minister of Economics” on a shirt,I ask the wearer, “Do you know how many deaths Che Gueverra caused?”.
Tom – Cuba was a response by Khruschev to Kennedy’s bungle in deploying Missles in Turkey a few months before. Up til then, he wasn’t going along with Eisenhowers previous plan. When the October disaster smacked him in the butt, it woke him up. He managed to save the whole mess, and the world, by aggreeing to pull the Turkey missles. If Khruschev hadn’t been over-ruled by cooler heads in the Politoburo, none of us would probably be here now.
- That shook Kennedy up enough that after that he stopped listening to the idiot Leftists in his party and got with the program. Today’s Lefties would have been screeching for his impeaachment.
- Bang
I love this site and your commenters as witnessed above are much of the reason why, though a couple other of my fav’s are missing here. Well informed and aware of history as it was, w/o in your face bias.
Thanks for being one of my more important places to find straight shooters and good info. It can’t be easy because” No good deed goes unpunished”!
Bang,
Which is basically what I said with the timeline of the Minuteman I through III deployments. In a span of only 7 years we upgraded from the I to III, so the first two variants weren’t seen as adequate.
Also, I think the first version of the Trident wasn’t even available until 1979, and prior to that the replacement of the Polaris was the Poseidon. I think the time frame from Polaris to Poseidon to Trident upgrade was probably only 15 years. And we went from the George Washington Class subs to the Lafayette Class to the Ohio Class in the same span.
Pretty close Ryan….There was an interum introduction of the Trident C4 version which fit the Polaris launch tube diameter of existing subs in the early 70’s, but was not the true full up Trident we have now. But your point is correct. We did not have reasonably assured Mad until that happened, and land based ICBM’s were really just frosting on the cake. They could be knocked out with enough force, because they were staionary, which was the whole point of the mobile nuclear fleet. No “assured” way of taking it all out at once, or even a few. Russia actually never achieved MAD. Probably another reason we’re still here.
- So the next time you hear a NeoLib bragging about taking down Nixon, and their grand victory in VietNam, you can just laugh at them. Cuba is not talked about that much, because even they know its the crown jewel in their hall of shame. they are not true Classic Liberals. I’m a classic Liberal. They’re soft Marxists, hiding behind the Liberal label.
- Bang
Guys, most of yall posting here so impress me, daily, I come to this site and get my talking points for the day … gotta have my ammo ready for any loons I may meet in school where I sub teach, even in Ala. we have some moonbats and with your help I usually blow em outta the water.
And the Trident version we have today was an upgrade itself, I believe being fully deployed by 1990.
Incidentally, we didn’t have ICBMS with MIRV until Minuteman III in 1972 I think.
Whatyou talkin’ bout D’mom?
You inspire us daily also. Love your passion!
- It’s like Bak says D’mom….It’s the salt of the earth people like yourself, all those unsung REAL hero’s out there across America, that go about their daily lives, doing their jobs, raising their families, and keeping the faith, that inspires the rest of us. Just one of you is worth 100,000 Sheehans or Deans, or Reids and Pelosi’s. It’s that faith, and hard working independent spirit that they don’t teach in schools, which is simply missing from the ranting minds and voices, of the people that would see our system and values brought down. They don’t understand the spirit of people like you and Bak, and ST, and a lot of the common sense people who write here. That’s why I believe they will always fail.
- Bang
John McCain had some of the best comparisons of Iraq to Vietnam:
“Our defeat in Vietnam nonetheless holds cautionary lessons. We lost in Vietnam because we lost the will to fight, because we did not understand the nature of the war we were fighting, and because we limited the tools at our disposal. Tet in 1968 was a massive battlefield defeat for the North but a strategic defeat for the United States – because the American press and the American public saw our leaders talk about a light at the end of the tunnel that did not exist. We can win the war in Iraq, but not if we lose popular support in the United States.”
And my personal favorite:
“Time and time again, the world has witnessed vast brutality, done nothing, and then said “never again.” In Iraq last year, we ensured that Saddam could never again slaughter Iraqis.”
I can’t vote for the guy, but he certainly has his moments. If only…
If I remember right North Vietnam broke a ceasefire with the Tet Offensive. Our troops recovered and repelled the attack, but somehow these idiots think we lost. Here we are almost 40 years later and they are still ranting about Tet. It is so pathetic. I guess what I am getting at is, how do we not consider these individuals traitors, and why has there been no punishment at all for their traitorous activities??? They are aligning themselves with the enemy, they do whatever it takes to break morale but of the people at home and the soldiers on the ground. There are legitamate complaints with the war, Yes I will agree with that. But to say that Abu-Graib is re-open under new management, and compare what we are doing to what Sadamn Hussein did, and to say in that same breath that Hussein, who killed 500,000 of his own people, was better, nicer, more benevolent, is flat out treasonous. You can go to far with your polliticing, and some have and continue to. – Lorica
Bak,
Has Tammy Bruce had an epifany since she left KFI? She used to be the biggest Liberal Liar on the airwaves.
Read her website…..
She subbed for Laura Ingraham today also.
ST has referenced her a few times including myself.
I love people who come around. I did so myself in 1991. I have repented for the error of my ways
So, George Bush compares Iraq to Viet Nam — how would he know. He didn’t go to Viet Nam.
Neither did you.
“So, George Bush compares Iraq to Viet Nam — how would he know. He didn’t go to Viet Nam.”
Oh gosh, well then I guess that would disqualify many of our armchair “Iraq is Vietnam” quarterbacks, many of whom haven’t been to Vietnam, either.