Vietnam, Korea, Iraq

I'm off to visit my grandparents with my wife this weekend, but before I go, I wanted to write about the President's new foray into justifying our continued presence in Iraq. He has been trying to draw parallels with two other American conflicts, Korea in the 1950s and Vietnam in the 1960s and 70s.

In a recent speech to the VFW in Kansas City, President Bush tried to especially focus on the idea that "just as in these two conflicts in SE Asia" if we leave Iraq, the country will go to hell in a hand basket and our enemies will benefit as a result. Now, I'll be the first to admit that America leaving Iraq will be destabilizing to the country in the near -- and perhaps far -- term. Of course, the question here is whether Bush's parallels with these other conflicts hold up. I think that with Korea especially, they do not.

I think if people want to make the Korean War analogy, they should do it right. Bush sees the Korean War as a symbol of our commitment to fight aggression and lay the groundwork for development and, eventually, democracy, in South Korea. But we had achieved the liberation of South Korea by October 1950, mere months after the war began. We then made the disastrous decision to push into North Korea in an effort to topple the communist government there. That triggered Chinese intervention, and the war developed into a stalemate that dragged on for three more years. The eventual ceasefire returned things essentially to the status quo ante, an outcome we could have achieved at much lower cost had we not chosen to expand the war.

So, yes, the Korean War analogy is quite apt. Just not in the way Bush means it. The decision to invade Iraq in March 2003 looks a lot like the ultimately futile decision to invade North Korea in October 1950.

In terms of the Vietnam parallel, Bush speaks in part of the Khmer Rouge gaining power in neighboring Cambodia after America began its withdrawal from Vietnam. Of course, as TPM's Todd Gitlin observes, "As anyone serious about history knows, a necessary condition for the triumph of the Khmer Rouge was the devastating American bombing campaign in Cambodia." Thus, again the parallel between the Iraq War and the Vietnam war exists, just not the way Bush would like us to believe. Al Quada of Iraq didn't exist in Iraq until Bush's war fostered it. It was the current war and the removal of Saddam Hussein from power that allowed it to rise... just as our intervention in Cambodia watered the seeds of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia three decades ago.

Bush is banking on the fact that: (1) Americans don't know history; and (2) The media won't call him on his obfuscations. Both are safe bets to be certain.

Of course, the most amazing thing in all of this is that Bush is still welcome in any VFW gathering. He has, after all, done nothing good for veterans other than offer up nice, patriotic rhetoric. Sadly, he has added to their number, so perhaps that is something...

23 August 2007