[Mb-civic] Iraq a Rerun of Vietnam

[Reeeees at aol.com]

Published on Monday, November 7, 2005 by the _Buffalo  News_ 
(http://www.buffalonews.com/)  (New York)  
Tragically, Iraq Has Become A Rerun Of Vietnam 
by  Anna  Quindlen
'Once again we were destroying the village in  order to save it.'  
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a tapering wall of  black granite cut into 
the grass of Constitution Gardens. Maya Lin  envisioned a scar when she 
designed it, a scar on this land, which is  exactly right. Maybe someday his security 
detail could drive George W.  Bush over to take a look. He'll be able to see 
himself in the reflective  surface.  
The list of names etched into the wall begins with  a soldier who died in 
1959 and ends with one who died in 1975. Nearly  60,000 dead are commemorated 
here. It is the most personal of war  memorials. You can touch the cold names 
with your warm fingers.  
The president never wanted the war in Iraq to be  personal. His people 
forbade photographs of coffins arriving home. They  refused to keep track of how 
many Iraqis had been killed and wounded. When  "Nightline" devoted a show to the 
faces of soldiers who had died, one  conservative broadcast outlet pulled the 
program from its lineup.  
The president wanted this war to be about policy,  not about people. Even 
that did not go well. The policy became a moving  target. First there were 
weapons of mass destruction that were not there  and links to the Sept. 11 
terrorists that didn't exist. The removal of  Saddam Hussein was given as the greatest 
good; it has been done. Then it  became the amorphous goal of bringing freedom 
to the Iraqi people, as  though liberty were flowers and we were FTD. The 
elections, the  constitution, the rubble, the dead. Once again we were destroying 
the  village in order to save it.  
This all took an unfortunate turn for the  administration during the 
president's vacation in August, when Cindy  Sheehan showed up at his ranch. Say what 
you will about her politics or  tactics, there was no doubt that she was a 
mother whose soldier son was  now dead, and wanted to know why. What was the 
cause, the point, the  strategy? And suddenly many Americans started to realize 
that there was no  good answer.  
The Vietnam Memorial stands, in part, as a monument  to blind incrementalism, 
to men who refused to stop, not because of wisdom  but because of ego, 
because of the fear of looking weak. Not enough  troops, not enough planning, no 
real understanding of the people or the  power of insurgency, dwindling public 
support. The war in Iraq is a  disaster in the image and likeness of its 
predecessor.  
The most unattractive trait of the American empire  is American arrogance, 
which the president embodies and which this war  elevated. It is not simply that 
we have a good system. It is the system  everyone else should have. It is the 
best system, and we are the best  people. We can mend rivalries so ancient 
that they predate not only our  nation but the birth of Christ. We will install 
the leaders we like in a  country we scarcely understand, leaders who will 
either be seen as puppets  by their people or who will eventually turn against 
us. We have been here  before.  
"In Vietnam we didn't have the lessons of Vietnam  to guide us," says David 
Halberstam, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his  coverage of that war. "In Iraq we 
did have those lessons. The tragedy is  that we didn't pay attention to 
them."  
Perhaps the leaders of the Democratic Party should  take time off from their 
fund-raisers and visit the Vietnam Memorial, too.  They should remember one of 
the most powerful men the party ever produced,  Lyndon B. Johnson, and how he 
was destroyed by opposition to the war in  Vietnam and bested by those brave 
enough to speak against it.  
At least Johnson had the good sense to be  heartbroken by the body bags. Bush 
appears merely peevish at being  criticized. Someone with a trumpet should 
play taps outside the White  House for the edification of a president who has 
not attended a single  funeral for the Iraqi war dead.  
The number of American soldiers killed has topped  2,000. Will I be writing 
these same things when the number is 3,000,  5,000, 10,000? If we are such a 
great nation, why are we utterly incapable  of learning from our mistakes? 
America's sons and daughters are dying to  protect the egos of those whose own 
children are safe at home. Again.  
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