Max Cleland: I Know Something About The Vietnam War
by Pamela LeaveyFormer Senator Max Cleland delivered the Democratic Radio Address on Saturday in response to Bush’s weekly radio address touting “surge success.” Cleland said, “Bush is ignoring the facts to again try to sell the Iraq war.”
Despite enormous sacrifice by Americans, Cleland said in his party’s radio address, “We find ourselves mired in a civil war with no end in sight and Iraqis unable or unwilling to make the political decisions necessary to end this conflict.”
Max Cleland “criticized Bush for comparing the conflicts in Vietnam and Iraq at an address to veterans earlier in the week.” In a speech earlier in the week, Bush had argued that “the U.S. decision to leave Vietnam had caused millions to suffer and should serve as an example as to why the country should not do the same in Iraq.”
“I know something about the Vietnam War,” Cleland, who lost three limbs in the war, said. “I know something about the price that was paid for continuing that war long after it was clear we could not succeed. I know something about years of war failing to produce Cleland said one fitting comparison between the two conflicts is that Bush has “a credibility gap.” The former senator said the same was true during the Vietnam War.
“But like political leaders during the Vietnam era, this President has a “credibility gap.” The majority of Americans see a profound difference between President Bush’s optimistic rhetoric and the grim reality which lies beneath,” Cleland stated. “Our history in Vietnam and the facts on the ground in Iraq today prove the American people are right.
“How do I know? Because I’ve seen this movie before,” he added. “I know how it ends. I know that all the PR in the world didn’t change the truth on the ground in Vietnam and won’t change the truth on the ground today in Iraq.”
The full text of Max Cleland’s Democratic Radio Address is as follows:
“My fellow Americans, this is Max Cleland, former U.S. Senator from Georgia.
This week, President Bush gave a speech comparing the ongoing war in Iraq to the Vietnam War.
He used this analogy in his latest plea to the American people for yet more time to continue his war.
I know something about the Vietnam War. I know something about the price that was paid for continuing that war long after it was clear we could not succeed. I know something about years of war failing to produce a stable, secure, and democratic country. I know something about enemy attacks increasing and taking an ever higher toll on our troops. Fifty-eight thousand young Americans were killed in Vietnam. Three hundred and fifty thousand were wounded.
I was one of them.
There are similarities between the war in Iraq and the war in Vietnam. One of the lessons to be learned from Vietnam is that the commitment of American military strength alone cannot solve another country’s political weakness. This should be a somber warning to us all to responsibly end the war in Iraq and the additional loss of precious American lives.
Congress has required the president to issue a report soon on the state of the war. This assessment gives him yet another opportunity to do the right thing and change course in Iraq.
Unfortunately, it appears he will continue to argue that if the American people and the U.S. Congress will just be patient things will work out. He is likely to say that given more time victory is just around the corner. He is likely to argue that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
But like political leaders during the Vietnam era, this President has a “credibility gap.” The majority of Americans see a profound difference between President Bush’s optimistic rhetoric and the grim reality which lies beneath.
Our history in Vietnam and the facts on the ground in Iraq today prove the American people are right.
How do I know? Because I’ve seen this movie before. I know how it ends. I know that all the PR in the world didn’t change the truth on the ground in Vietnam and won’t change the truth on the ground today in Iraq.
What is this truth? The truth is that more than 3,700 Americans have already lost their lives, more than 20,000 have been wounded, and nearly $500 billion in American taxpayer funds have been expended.
The truth is that despite this enormous sacrifice, we find ourselves mired in a civil war with no end in sight and Iraqis unable or unwilling to make the political decisions necessary to end this conflict.
And the truth is President Bush’s decision to go to war and stay at war has actually encouraged thousands of new recruits for Al-Qaida in Iraq and around the world, has made the Middle East and other parts of the globe less safe, has alienated the Muslim world and allowed Al-Qaida – the enemy that attacked this nation six years ago – a chance to rebuild and restore its terror network.
These are the facts. But the facts will not stop the President and his fellow Republicans from trying once again to sell the American people a bill of goods on the Iraq War.
The failures in Iraq are not the fault of our troops or their courage in battle. They have done everything asked of them and more. The conflict in Iraq is an Iraqi political problem, not a U.S. military problem. We can’t continue to sacrifice American lives, deplete our treasury and weaken our national security. We can’t expect our soldiers to continue to risk their lives especially when the Iraqi leaders themselves show no interest in achieving a peaceful political solution.
President Bush’s report to Congress will attempt to show that his escalation has produced improved security in certain parts of Iraq. But it will ignore the stark truth in Iraq – - that his overall strategy to buy time for Iraqis to make the needed political decisions has failed and, just like Vietnam, we are enmeshed now in an open-ended war for which our troops and our country will pay the price for decades to come.
That’s why we must act now. This fall, Democrats in Congress will continue to stand with our troops – and with the American people – - to remember the lessons of history – - and end the Iraq War.
This is Max Cleland. ”
Thank you Max.
In other Iraq War news… AP News reported on Saturday:
This year’s U.S. troop buildup has succeeded in bringing violence in Baghdad down from peak levels, but the death toll from sectarian attacks around the country is running nearly double the pace from a year ago.
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Try this for a fact: the American government has imprisoned more of our citizens for the thought crime of thinking that pot gives a good buzz than the Vietnamese government incarcertaed Vietnamese citizens for the thought crime of having fought against communism. The whole reason why there were “boat people” and are millions of Vietnamese immigrants in the U.S. is because there was not a mass killing of those who disagreed with the eventual winners.
It seems fair to say that Vietnamese society is more tolerant of differing political points of view than the U.S. society is of differing mind altering substances points of view.
In our country people get high when, where, and how mandated or they are subjected to a reorientation process that consists of a stretch in prison.
In Viet Nam, if you don’t care for the status quo (or didn’t, since the exodus has largely stopped) you just go some place where there are lots of jobs paying good wages, and send money back to the folks left behind.
I know which one of those approcahes seems to most humane to me.
I also am a Vietnam War veteran and Mr. Cleland’s assessment is totally correct. I served with the Military Intelligence Detachment of the 25th Infantry Division. The American public was lied to throughout the Johnson and Nixon administrations. They promised us a “light at the end of the tunnel” which was never even lit. They supplied inflated enemy body counts, to give the allusion that we were winning. The “Gulf of Tonkin Resolution” got us deeply
entrenched in the conflict, based on an alleged attack by the North Vietnam on two US naval ships. It has been 100% proven that the attack never happened. The report was simply used as a propaganda tool to sell the war. We were fed the political propaganda that if we let South Vietnam fall to the communists, all other Southeast Asian countries would topple like a row of dominoes. Ths “dominoe theory” also proved bogus. Both US Generals and asstute political annalyists realized years before the war ended that it was unwinable. But, the powers that be let it continue until 58,000 names of heroic service people were engraved on a granite wall in D.C. Even at the very end President Nixon twisted the truth by assuring the American public that we had achieved, “peace with dignity.” The fact of the matter is that we simply lost.
The parrallels between our Vietnam involvement and the current quagmire in Iraq have many similarities. Bush’s staged arrival on the USS Lincoln beneath a bannor declaring, “Mission Accomplished” was sheer propaganda. President Bush was told in advance of his 2002 State of the Union message not to mention the alleged sale of uranium by Africa to Iraq. The sale had already been proven false by various world wide intelligence sources. However, Bush included the lie in order to sell the war. It also has been sustantiated that Oval Office conversations as early as Jan. 2001 clearly indicated that “The Decider” had already decided to wage a pre-emptive war against Iraq. The tragedy of the 9/11 attacks gave him an excuse to use military force. A propaganda campaign was successfully launched to convince the public that Iraq had been responsible for the attack. Of course, this was pure fiction. All of the 19 terrorist involved came from Saudi Arabia. (our staunch ally) They all received their training under Osama Bin Laden in Afganistan. The Bush administration has never permitted truth to get in the way of it’s objectives. We were then made to believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. When this “fact” was proven false we were told that the war was being waged to get rid of their evil dictator. However, once Sadam and his sons were killed we stayed on. We were then told it was our obligation to install a democracy in Iraq. We were further told that ” as the Iraq’s stand up, Americans will stand down”.
The puppet Iraq government and the meger excuse of an Iraq military show absolutely no indication of standing up.
It’s too bad that Bush Jr. did not take the advice of Bush Sr. before this ill-advised military adventure. In 1993 Bush Sr. was asked that once Kuwait was freed why didn’t he continued all the way to Bagdad and topple the evil dictator. His wise response was that an invasion of Iraq would simply create a power vaccum, likely resulting in a full scale civil war. Bush Sr. further stated that a US invasion could get us innvolved in an ugly quagmire from which it would take years to extradite ourselves. When baby Bush was asked if he had sought the advice of his father before the pre-emptive invasion he replied, “No I consulted a Higher Father.” Too bad his direct hotline to God was working that day!!!