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May 11, 2004
Bill Sammon writes in today's
Bill Sammon writes in today's Washington Times about the enduring fixation on Vietnam by some people:
"President Bush's top advisers think Democratic opponents and the press have an unhealthy obsession with the Vietnam War that threatens to dominate the re-election campaign against Sen. John Kerry."
No kidding.
This is something that I've meant to write about for some time and now is as good a time as any.
There is a certain group of people who have an almost unhealthy fixation with Vietnam. All new US military ventures must be compared to Vietnam as soon as possible. All wars must be turned into Vietnam as soon as possible. And everything will go the way of Vietnam eventually.
This is so because if you listen to these people long enough you will believe that world history began in 1963 and ended in 1973. They will mention no other conflicts. Their entire knowledge base seems to begin and end in this time period.
In response to this we usually hear three lines of argument. One, it was the formative period in their lives. Two, the WWII generation before them was the same way with that war (everything being compared to Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler). And three, it was such a terrible experience that is good that we make sure we don't repeat it.
As to the first, we all have our formative periods. There is nothing wrong with one period of history being the primary influence in forming ones political philosophy. The problem is when it becomes a fixation, which it has. Read books about other time periods, guys.
No doubt that the "appeasement of Hitler" analogy was used quite a bit in the last half of the 20th century. But I would argue that it was nowhere near the level of today's fixation on Vietnam.
The last defense misses the point. When those of us on the right complain about a "fixation on Vietnam," we're not saying that we shouldn't examine the lessons of that war and try to avoid them next time 'round. If this was all that was happening this column would not have been written.
Let's take a little trip down memory lane. Oh how they cried thatthe 1991 Gulf War would be another Vietnam! Remember the predictions of thousands and thousands of US casualties? About how a battle with the "hardened and experienced" Iraqi army would surely end in stalemate?
Fast forward ten years to Afghanistan. Less than one week into that war we heard the cries of "quagmire!"
Then it was on to Iraq. What is interesting here is that some of the groups that predicted high casualties in this war, like the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, famously did so in a 2002 paper (more about which here) because they assumed that Saddam would use chemical weapons. And once again, less than one week into the war we heard the cries of "quagmire"!
Iraq will only become another Vietnam if we let it happen. Factually, there is no comparison between the two.
But it was never about the facts. The fixation on Vietnam is more psychology than history. It's a blindness to any other possibility than that all wars can and will turn into a replica of Vietnam.
Posted by Tom at May 11, 2004 12:20 PM
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