Lesson from history
I was watching a new special on the Kennedy assassination and an important revelation appeared. The story talked about how paranoid Lyndon Johnson was after the assassination. Johnson had been told by the CIA that if the Russians were going to launch a nuclear attack, they would likely first assassinate the president and other key leaders of the country. So he was pretty shaky right off the bat. After he settled into office, he became concerned that the rise of communism across the globe was the real risk to America. Post the Kennedy killing (which he suspected was put in place by the Russians or Cubans), Johnson became convinced that America needed to strike out against communism somewhere to make a statement about Americas military might.
So the story said Johnson settled on Vietnam as the place to make a statement to the world in retaliation against the murder of Kennedy. The world had to know that the US wasn't going to accept the murder of their President and that the US was serious about containing communism. Of all the places on the map that would be the easiest place for a quick victory, Vietnam was the place. Or so he thought.
The similarities to today are striking.
Bush wakes up post 9/11 and realizes the greatest threat to America was the spread of radical Islam. In order to send a message to the world that the US wouldn't just take the 9/11 attacks, he felt compelled to strike somewhere. To make a statement to the world, the US needed a quick victory. Iraq was the easiest (so he thought) place on the map to win a quick war to show the world that the US was serious.
We'll see what the history books right about Bush but I suspect they will discover many similarities between the paranoid fear of Johnson and Bush. Both Texans led us into a war that they thought would be quickly won only to be bogged down in a political, military and economic quagmire that neither could escape.
Soar!
2 comments:
and MANY said " why are we doing this"? WHEN IT STARTED. But they were labeled as malcontents,un-american and panty waisted liberals.
I think you have articulated why there is so much disgust and disappointment with the "leadership" of W ( and the lemmings who followed his call to go to war when there was no real justification or link to the terrorist bombings).
What I will always remember about this administration is the continual attempts to control and scare us post 9/11. Terrorist warnings, airport security overkill, home land security - all the while letting anyone and everyone come in across the southern border so our economy could have cheap labor.
You did say from the get-go "Why are we doing this?"
Maybe the war was wrong but I fully agree that the single greatest threat we face is the surge of radical Islam and a religion that promises rewards to those who kill innocent people. That ideology left unchecked could destroy the world.
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