Quagmire?
Just read an interesting post over at Voice of a Veteran which draws some parallels between Vietnam and Iraq in terms of our domestic political leadership.
The post largely consists of excerps from an essay by Col. Hackworth. VOAV is the personal blog of another retired Colonel. Not to be outdone, our friend Tom Carter (another retired Colonel) dropped by and posted some comments. The post is almost as interesting for the perspective of the three different Colonel's as it is for the more obvious domestic political observations.
4 Comments:
Kevin, it's impossible to draw meaningful comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam at this point. Well, I guess you can say they were both wars, but that's about it. Did the government purposely mislead the public ("lie") during the Vietnam era? Probably, but there's still a lot of thoughtful controversy about that. Has the Bush Administration purposely misled the public about Iraq? That's a common assertion, but it hasn't been proven and I doubt it's true. There may come a time, perhaps in another 10 years, when parallels can appropriately be drawn. I sincerely hope that time doesn't come.
As far as COL Hackworth is concerned, I have a lot of professional respect for him. But, if you care to do a lot of research, you'll find that he's been something of a gadfly politically. A lot of what he's said in the past has been over the top, and for that reason he isn't taken very seriously except by people who want to pick and chose among his pronouncements for their own purposes.
Here's the thing, Tom...
We're not likely to ever have a "smoking gun" vis-a-vis Administration lies. Nobody gets to that level without having learned the art of plausible deniability, nor to they get there without having folks like Carville or Rove there to provide professional assistance with said plausible deniability.
That however doesn't mean that we can't independently look at the known facts, reference Occam's Razor, and reasonably conclude that we've been lied to.
That's why, despite what seems to me to be compelling evidence that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was 99.99999 lie, that issue still gets debated.
I have an enormously difficult time believing that Bush et al could possibly have believed their own rhetorical spin in the build-up to the Iraq invasion and in the ensuing months as no WMD materialized.
Here you go Tom:
There certainly are provably instances of Bush lying about Iraq.
Three quick sources:
http://www.bushwatch.com/iraqevidence.htm
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/03/07/22_lies.html
http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/10101
Kevin, saying the President is a liar is a specific statement of fact. It's either true or it isn't, and the implications are not trivial. Saying you can "reasonably conclude" that he's a liar doesn't cut it. The websites you cited don't provide the proof, either.
One thing I find very difficult to understand is why some think it so awfully important to be able to use the word "liar." Oppose his policies, point out all the instances in which he was wrong about something, fault the intelligence failures under his watch, whatever. But until he's caught in bald-faced lies, as Clinton was, give him the benefit of the doubt. It doesn't weaken your case against him; to the contrary, it would make it seem more reasoned.
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