Richard WarnickThe Right Blames America, Again
Those of us who recall the Vietnam War era have heard it all before. During and after that conflict, the right doggedly blamed the media, Congress and anti-war Americans in general for every setback that led to the fall of Vietnam to communism. All of this country’s blood, sacrifice and the equivalent of more than $600 billion in today’s dollars went for nothing, it was said, because the war had been “lost on the home front.” Supposedly, a clever enemy targeted U.S. public opinion and tricked America into giving up on victory, that proverbial “light at the end of the tunnel” described by President Lyndon Johnson (LBJ) in 1968, when our Vietnam troop commitment reached a peak of 537,000.
The reality was different. In private, LBJ mocked his own slogan: “Light at the end of the tunnel? We don’t even have a tunnel; we don’t even know where the tunnel is!†Then, as in Iraq today, the Pentagon was trying to cope with an unconventional, essentially political conflict mostly using conventional military means, without an adequate understanding of the local culture. As the Vietnam fiasco dragged on from 1964 to 1973, a failed strategy coupled with a lot of false optimism and propaganda led to increasing public opposition to the war and widespread cynicism about the government’s credibility gap. Those who claim that lack of public support led to defeat have it backwards– defeat and lies led to lack of support.
From the moment the Bush administration began in 2002 to sell their “war of choice” (polite term for “war of aggression”), there was an implication that anyone expressing opposition to Bush’s war could expect to have their patriotism questioned by the right-wing smear machine. Just before the 2002 election, this was not an idle threat. Even the courageous Senator Max Cleland (D-GA), who was awarded a Silver Star and a Bronze Star for Valor in Vietnam, voted to authorize the use of military force against Iraq. He knew it was the wrong decision, and ironically he lost the election anyway after his opponent falsely accused him of being soft on terror.
It happened again in the next two elections, as Republicans played their phony Vietnam card over and over. In 2006 Tony Snow coined the term “Defeatocrats” and they did the same thing to Illinois Democratic congressional candidate Tammy Duckworth that they did to Max Cleland. Duckworth proposed an end to the occupation, a position her opponent mindlessly characterized as “cut and run” despite knowing that Major Duckworth had both legs amputated when her helicopter was shot down in Iraq.
Even though the right knows by now Iraq is a lost cause, they figure that they can just blame America, again.
From Devilstower on DailyKos:
The big irony is that the right, having refused to accept the facts on the ground, has instead created a mythology that requires traitors in the heartland. Though they so often point at the left as willing to “blame America,” the whole mindset of those in support of the action in Iraq requires that they blame Americans, both then and now, for the failures of bad strategy, miserable planning and sorry execution…. The right doesn’t just blame America first, they blame Americans first, last, and only for every mistake they’ve made.
UPDATE: From Rich Lowry of the National Review:
The Democrats are in the throes of a full-fledged Vietnam flashback. Even if the Bush ‘’surge” works, Democrats will stay committed to ending the war - just as Democrats cut off the war in Vietnam in the mid-1970s, even as it had been put on a more sustainable footing. The party has regressed all the way to its McGovernite roots…. This McGovernite tendency is pacificist and isolationist…. The Vietnam Syndrome made Democrats allergic to the use of force for two decades. The Iraq Syndrome will be a reprise.
In other words, Lowry is ready to put the blame on those who would end an unwinnable war, not on those who started it.
February 5th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
Hitler the Austrian blamed the German people for his failures.
bush the crownie blames Americans…
and around and around we go,… estates in Paraguay, offshore accounts, exxon profits, iran contra, 911, oh what fun, and on and on, goes the bushie con…
February 5th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
The right can just S.T.F.U. They’re whining ’cause they lost some of thier power. This whole mess can be laid in thier laps and thier only protections from the prosecutions that are thier due, were to retain power, blame those who would force a change of thier criminal course, or beg for forgiveness. I’m all for the later but basically my attitude is: To Hell with them. Give em Florida.
February 5th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
Aaaaa-men Richard. You are a truth teller.
February 5th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Give them NOTHING!!
Their future date is with ME!!
February 5th, 2007 at 7:59 pm
The right in this country has gone too far. This fact was shouted out in the November elections. Did anyone imagine dems would win BOTH houses?
The right have not the history to reflect upon the implications of their actions. But they will pay.
I have already implemented a policy of screening employees for their political beliefs.
No right winger will work for me ever again. I have already fired two. I hope other employers with follow suit.
These people must be punished for their ignorance.
The cost in lives and treasure of this war, not to mention the domestic cost of debt and bankruptcy is on the heads of the Americans who support this party.
Today, the DAILY cost of interest on the debt is 900 million dollars. 900 MILLION each and every day and rising.
February 5th, 2007 at 8:45 pm
Careful Lynette!
Careful. What you do must be done silently, and for entirely other than stated reasons, lest you lose your business in a suit.
This is a dictatorship. Keep your own counsel. I have no legs and arms, and require help to be fully utilized. Do not tip your hand on an issue so meaningless to grand history,a s minor employment.
Though I commend you. Such sand is the manner in which tories were tarred and feathered, and sent PACKING!!
February 5th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
Diane,
Do your right winger friends know that the Presidents budget includes 235 billion dollars in interest alone on the debt for ONE YEAR?
Do they care? Do they have a clue? DO they know that this number has DOUBLED under Bush? Do your middle class and blue collar friends KNOW that Bush is asking for MORE tax cust for the rich?
Do they really think that tax cuts to the rich have worked? Do they really think our economy is singing along?
Diane, what say you and yours?
February 5th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
Thank you Mr. Rope for your concern. However you should know that being criminally stupid, malicious and evil is a perfectly legitimate reason for firing people.
February 5th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
Ah, but their claim would be,that what they condone is their belief, is their 1st amendment right, and as such you as their employer have no right top pass judgment upon their notions.
Ah such are Revolutionary times. I well remember them, when I was put to task by both sides of the War for Independence, I was much more satisfied to apply myself to the task of stretching tory/crownie necks. Tread wisely Lynette, though I support the effort, in the Spirit of…
DON’T TREAD ON ME!!!!
I was especially saddened by the vile task of ending the sweet life of Nathan Hale, a Patriot, only regretting he had but one life to give to his Blessed Country. Ah, the like of him, I hope to see again, though I more fondly remember Patrick Henry, upon whose neck I could never be applied, he being the kind to take his treasure by his own hand!!
Oh, how I loved those Rough Boys, and their Iron Spined Women, might you be so inclined Lynette, so I say?
John Paul Jones shall set the CALL, “We have not yet begun to Fight”
Walk the Freedom walk, the time is over, for silly talk.
I bide my time, til thee me, require, time to boil tar, light then the Fire!!