32 Comments

1. RogerA:

When Mark Hatfield supports the war on terror, then that is a major story. The man has achieved sainthood status in Oregon because of his consistently anti-war positions. This is a really really big story for the Republican campaign.

Sep 26, 2004 - 7:23 am 2. Solomon:

Wow. That is really a remarkable endorsement.

Sep 26, 2004 - 7:28 am 3. Syl:

Amazing.

Too many thoughts running around in my head over this to be coherent. I’ll just repeat…amazing.

Bless you, Senator Hatfield, for your wisdom and courage.

Sep 26, 2004 - 7:32 am 4. MaDr:

I’ve always assigned Roger and Glenn to the libertarian camp. Although this doesn’t always nicely fit, it does give me a basis from which to start.

Sep 26, 2004 - 8:13 am 5. Ken:

Iran is not another Vietnam. It can be, though, if our fearless leaders want it to be. All they have to do is the following:

1. Bring back the draft. If not for the draft, volunteers could have held the line until Hell froze over, and a lot fewer people would have complained about it.

2. Let Iran have nukes. The reason that we couldn’t take the war to the enemy in Vietnam was because the ultimate enemy backing the North Vietnamese had nukes. Iran is backing at least part of the “insurgency” in Iraq; let them have nukes, and Iran can go hog-wild with their proxy war and we’ll be stuck in a years-long holding action just as we were in Vietnam.

Sep 26, 2004 - 8:17 am 6. Simon W. Moon:

Here’re some “idiotic” thoughts from the good folks at the Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute:

IRAQ AND VIETNAM: DIFFERENCES, SIMILARITIES, AND INSIGHTS

Jeffrey Record

W. Andrew Terrill

May 2004

Dr. Jeffrey Record, formerly a civilian pacification advisor in Vietnam and author of books on both the Vietnam and Iraq wars, and W. Andrew Terrill, author and co-author of several SSI studies on Iraq, conclude that the military dimensions of the two conflicts bear little comparison. Among other things, the sheer scale of the Vietnam War in terms of forces committed and losses incurred dwarfs that of the Iraq War. They also conclude, however, that failed U.S. state-building in Vietnam and the impact of declining domestic political support for U.S. war aims in Vietnam are issues pertinent to current U.S. policy in Iraq.

Unfolding events in Iraq have prompted some observers to make analogies to the American experience in the Vietnam War. The United States has, they argue, stumbled into another overseas ‘quagmire’ from which there is no easy or cheap exit.

There is simply no comparison between the strategic environment, the scale of military operations, the scale of losses incurred, the quality of enemy resistance, the role of enemy allies, and the duration of combat.

Such an emphatic judgment, however, may not apply to at least two aspects of the political dimensions of the Iraq and Vietnam wars: attempts at state-building in an alien culture, and sustaining domestic political support in a protracted war against an irregular enemy. It is, of course, far too early predict whether the United States will accomplish its policy objectives in Iraq and whether public support will ’stay the course’ on Iraq. But policymakers should be mindful of the reasons for U.S. failure to create a politically legitimate and militarily viable state in South Vietnam, as well as for the Johnson and Nixon administrations’ failure to sustain sufficient domestic political support for the accomplishment of U.S. political objectives in Indochina. Repetition of those failures in Iraq could have disastrous consequences for U.S. foreign policy.

A little from column A a little from column B

Sep 26, 2004 - 8:24 am 7. Charlie (Colorado):

Now I think it’s worse. They are an excuse for blindness and stupidity.

You left out “willful” and “obstinate”.

I was watching Michael Wolff from Vanity Fair on Fox and Friends a few days ago. Wolff was talking about the CBS thing, and he asserted again that “everyone knew” the storuy was basically correct. ED Hill immediately challenged him, pointing out — among other things — that while there was lot of competition for the Guard in general, the Air Guard was advertizing for people to fly, because qualified applicants were hard to find. Wolff gave a patronizing chuckle and said “You’re too young to remember those days. I do, and everyone knew the Guard was a way out of the draft.”

Wolff, of course, is right: everyone knew that if you could get into the Army Guard and get trained as a clerk-typist, you got six months of training and some years of weekends spent typing, but no one would shoot at you.

(This is, interestingly, what Dick Gebhardt did in the Guard.)

But, as everyone here has already seen argued at length, that’s not what Bush did, and there is plenty of documentation of what really happened.

The point is, though, that Wolff is paid for his writing and was once, at least, a reporter. Wouldn’t you kind of think that he wouldn’t pull up somethig that’s been widely debunked, or could manage a better defense than “heh heh, you’re so cute”?

After all the discussion of this over the last year or two, it seems to me almost impossible that Wolff could be unaware of the counter-arguments.

Sep 26, 2004 - 9:01 am 8. jdwill:

It’s all just so confusing:

Fareed Zarkaria thinks Bush thinks its WWII, while he opts for the Cold War.

Lieutenant Colonel Powl Smith likens it to Guadalcanal (as a part of WWII).

Dowd is sulking in her room playing at a puppet show.

Pfaff thinks its Algeria, and we (Kerry) are the French! Yikes!

I’ll settle for the real deal and hold the analogies. LT Gen Petraeus – We are poised to win but expect a struggle.

Sep 26, 2004 - 9:11 am 9. Samuel:

As Catherine would say… “WOW!”. I won’t tell you what Samuel would say because it would take more than 400 words and he has to leave. See you later.

Sep 26, 2004 - 9:18 am 10. G Hamid:

Mr. Simon,

I served in Vietnam from March 1970 to February 1971 in the Army Medical Corps. You are absolutely right that the current conflict is nothing like Vietnam and I am sick and tired of the media and politicians brow-beating us with their insipid comparisons. I’m proud of my service and while I recall the good and bad of it every day, I’ve moved on, why can’t they? I don’t mind carrying the weight but do they have to continually add to it. They remind me of Al Bundy constantly harking back to his High School football glory. Their glory is in the past and at the rate they’re going that is where it will remain.

Anyway, thanks for letting me vent and thanks for your blog.

George Hamid

Sep 26, 2004 - 9:35 am 11. richard mcenroe:

To paraphrase that great falsifier of history in the 70’s, Michael Herr, of “Dispatches” fame:

“Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam. We never left there.”

(Whatever happened to him, anyway?)

Sep 26, 2004 - 10:57 am 12. Michael B:

File under the category of “in loco parentis.” You note herein:

I have posted ad infinitum that I think “liberal” and “conservative” have become junk terms.

Yet in a nearly adjacent post, it’s (quite approvingly) noted:

“That’s my governor – socially liberal, intelligently pro-environment, fiscally conservative and a foreign policy hawk to protect all of the above.

So is this similar to a parent, referring to a recently well behaved offspring, as “my child,” but later referring to the exact same offspring, after a less well behaved episode, as “your child”?

Sep 26, 2004 - 11:38 am 13. chuck:

Michael B:

Apples and oranges. Is Schwarzenegger liberal or conservative? The point is that the categories don’t suffice to completely sum up an individual. Particular actions can still be classified to some extent. I say some, because the categories themselves have become overly broad and diffuse, and need to be qualified, i.e., fiscal conservative, social conservative, etc. Even the qualified terms remain somewhat ambiguous, that is the curse of language and thought, but the alternative would be for all of us to shut up. Fat chance.

By the way, Roger, logging in to comment is guite an adventure these days. Something is flaky.

Sep 26, 2004 - 11:59 am 14. Syl:

The labels are useful and still matter even though it’s too easy to stereotype. I don’t know about Roger but when I decided to break with my past and support Bush it took a long time before the stigma I had attached to the words conservative and right-wing started to fade.

It can sting to be called something you’ve been prejudiced against all your life and the tendency is to simply dismiss the label.

I think part of it is that along the journey you may start by agreeing with one or two principles and not share them all. So you figure the label doesn’t fit you. But the old one doesn’t fit either. So you think the labels are meaningless.

At least that was the way I saw it.

Sep 26, 2004 - 12:00 pm 15. Charlie (Colorado):

Michael, you ninny, Roger’s trying to speak intelligently about a distinction that’s gotten to be very difficult to speak clearly about.

You, however, are playing “gotcha”.

I’m not in a good enough mood to be nice about it, as Syl has — I hate business travel, I hate Columbus OH, and I’m about to leave on a business trip to Columbus OH — so I just want to make it clear we’ve noticed.

Sep 26, 2004 - 12:35 pm 16. Charlie (Colorado):

Oh, BTW, Riger, I’m also hving trouble with login. It’s taking me three or four tries to log in successfully, with unsuccessful attempts characterized by the screen form saying “thank you for logging in”, but posting being declined saying I’m not logged in.

Sep 26, 2004 - 12:37 pm 17. Terrye:

I tell you what, all these folks that think Iraq is Viet Nam can come back in a decade after 57,000 dead Americans and hundreds of thousand of dead Arabs and tell us all about how this is like Viet Nam.

It is like a disease with these folks, a morbid preoccupation.

And in defence of the Guard. I knew guys in the NG. Some stayed here, some were activated but they all served. We needed the Guard then and we need it now. One of the things about this whole discusssion that has pissed me off is the denigrating of the Guard, often as not by people who never spent so much as a day in boot camp.

Sep 26, 2004 - 1:55 pm 18. Michael B:

Good grief. It wasn’t a “gotcha” moment in the least, it was merely a minor, somewhat bemused observation – humanity, irony, etc. Of course I’m tempted to cry “Censorship!” having now been subjected to Charlie (C)’s “gotcha,” but you might take that with literal minded seriousness as well.

Still, I can but deeply admire Roger’s ardent defenders and shall therefore retire in humble and contrite penance for the evening, renewing my pursuit of truth itself.

In vino veritas!

Sep 26, 2004 - 2:48 pm 19. mrp:

Former Senator Hatfield:

I know that this record will cause many to wonder why I am such a strong supporter of President Bush and his policy in Iraq. My support is based on the fact that our world changed on Sept. 11, 2001, a day on which we lost more American lives than we did in the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Whereas, in their collective insanity, the Kerry Dems are clicking the heels of their ruby slippers while repeating the mantra: “Take us back to November 6, 2000″.

Sep 26, 2004 - 3:02 pm 20. jbb:

Roger,

I think that Iraq is quite a bit like Vietnam, but probably not in the way its usually meant. Let me count the ways:

1) Vietnam was a proxy war. We fought the north vietnamese government and the Soviet government while in Vietnam. After the VietCong were defeated at Tet, we were actually fighting the North Vietnamese army.

Iraq is also a proxy war. We are fighting Iran and Syria while in Iraq. How long will this similarity last? It depends on what happens after we kill most of the local Iraqi Militants. Will Iran invade like North Vietnam did? Probably not, and then the similarity will end.

2) The Vietnam war was our’s to lose or walk away from. We had essentially won Vietnam before we walked away. Iraq is ours to lose too. I don’t think we will walk away, so the similarity will end there.

3) The strategy of Iraqification is essentially the same as Vietnamization. It will work if we build it long enough. It worked in Vietnam too, but we left before it was strong enough to withstand an actual invasion.

4) We fight the war not because we care about the actual country so much, but because we care about the regional affects of winning and losing. Vietnam was about Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore etc. Iraq is really about the whole region. Its also largly faught for the purposes of an ideology, as was Vietnam.

I acknowledge that more purely military differences exist between the two wars – I won’t try to argue that. I also don’t think Iraq is a quagmire, either. But then I don’t think Vietnam was a quagmire. Am I the only one?

Sep 26, 2004 - 3:46 pm 21. John Moore ( Useful Fools ):

Regarding labels…

Roger likes the label reactionary. To me, it sounds like the Marxists I heard in college. I’ve never heard it since then (other than on short wave communist propaganda stations) until recently.

It is a fact of human nature that labels will be applied to groups. It is necessary for succinct communication. If precision is important, context or adjectives may be needed to refine the meaning.

I am a conservative… or perhaps somewhere between a social conservative and a neocon. Oops – 3 labels.

But we need them.

If you look at Shannon’s information theory, the more common concepts should get shorter words. Examine english and you’ll find what was important over the last few hundred years. Look at slang and you’ll see new things important to the slang user having short words.

Why is “cow” one syllable and three letters? We could use that short word for something much more common. But cows used to be important daily to 98% of the population – hence the short word.

Labels work the same way.

Liberal is a problem, because the term has been hijacked by the illiberal. Neoconservative is almost an oxymoron, and yet it seems to work.

So no matter how much we rant and rave at stereotyping and labelling, it’s going to keep happening.

One characteristic of a conservative is recognizing the nature of man In this case, its the natural tendency to label, group, and stereotype. It’s part of abstract thought and turns out to be useful (and dangerous).

Sep 26, 2004 - 3:53 pm 22. richard mcenroe:

jbb ó Vietnamization actually was standing up to a serious invasion after we left, and successfully. That’s why the Democrats in Congress cut off shipments of arms and munitions to the South Vietnamese…

Sep 26, 2004 - 4:33 pm 23. ronm:

A slight bit of hipocracy. Your comment:

“I have posted ad infinitum that I think “liberal” and “conservative” have become junk terms. Now I think it’s worse. They are an excuse for blindness and stupidity.”

And then your survey asks the very question.

Sep 26, 2004 - 7:19 pm 24. gb_in_ga:

Just a some thoughts on the use and misuse of the term “Liberal”.

First, we must determine what the term “Liberal” actually means: Liberal is the term used for a person, group or ideal that promotes personal and fiscal liberty. It is that which is embodied by the reduction of government control in the citizen’s affairs to the absolute minimum necessary to ensure an orderly society.

Next, we must note what the opposite of Liberalism is, and what it is not. Remembering that Liberalism is the promotion of the ideal that the government allow the maximum amount of liberty to the citizenry, we find that the opposite of it is that ideal which makes for the least amount of liberty to the citizenry. The correct term for this is Authoritarianism. The current conception of the opposite of Liberalism is Conservatism. This is NOT correct, as the Conservative, as currently perceived, promotes personal fiscal liberty (at least as compared to those who claim to the term “Liberal” now).

Next, let us see how well those who currently claim to be “Liberals”, who are truly the Left, stack up against the definition of such. Current “Liberals” promote the increased taxation of the citizenry in order to fund projects that help their pet social agenda. This amounts to the forced income redistribution of personal wealth from the “Haves” to the “Have Nots”, by the government under force of law, and is such is most certainly NOT liberal. It is authoritarian. It is the Tyranny of the Majority. Current “Liberals” promote the forced leveling of the social “playing field”, promoting some groups perceived to be “disadvantaged” over other groups perceived to be “advantaged” by the government under the force of law, and is such is certainly NOT liberal. It is authoritarian. It is an affront to the liberty of those groups deemed “advantaged”. You can’t be truly Liberal if you suppress liberty in ANY group.

Therefore, I refuse to use the term “Liberal” when referring to the Left. The Left isn’t actually liberal at all. The Left claims to be Liberal when it actually isn’t, it is Authoritarian. Granted, it is Authoritarian which they try to paint a “Smiley Face” on to hide it’s Authoritarian nature, but it is Authoritarian all the same. Just look behind the curtain. Leftists claim that they do what they do in order to promote “Fairness”, but instead what they really want to do is promote favored classes over other classes in order to curry political favor, in order to gain political power for political power’s sake — in order to be the Authoritarians. It all boils down the “Bread and Circuses” thing: Tax the Rich — feed and entertain the downtrodden masses — they will keep voting you in — so that you can continue to be despots. Benevolent despots, but despots all the same. Doing what it takes to gain and attain power for power’s sake. That’s what they’re all about, whether they want to admit it or not. Yech!

Now, let me head off the immediate criticism that is sure to come: I am not by any means indicating that group that is currently posing as the opposite of the Leftist “Liberals” as being Liberals themselves. They aren’t really liberals, either. Hence, the opposite of Liberal isn’t Conservative. Now, some ideals held by current Conservates aren’t anti-Liberal at all. At least, not when compared with the actual definition of Liberal. But they can’t truly be called Liberals either, as they hold to much that is also authoritarian. But at least they seem to be more amenable to the principles of the true Liberal, and usually will agree that true liberty is an ideal that should ultimately be attained. For the most part, they are just being pragmatic about it. They are at least willing to listen and debate rationally. Usually. And as such I find that I can work with them towards the ultimate goal of real Liberty. So that is why I find myself in their “big tent”. It is not because of what they are now, it is the potential of what they may become.

Sep 27, 2004 - 8:11 am 25. gb_in_ga:

JBB:

Well, yes, I do think that Vietnam was a quagmire, but it didn’t have to be. As such I’m still sorta bitter about it.

First, I had then and have now no qualms about us being there — it was a “Hot” campaign in the Cold War between us and Global Socialist/Communist Totalarianism. Like Iraq and Afganistan, it was a campaign in a much larger war for our very survival.

Second, I assert that campaign was actually winnable if we had the will to do so. We didn’t.

Third, I assert that the reason that we didn’t win that campaign, which turn into a quagmire, was because the Left actively hampered efforts to do so. By the Left I mean the “Barking Moonbats” of that day, egged on by the MSM of that day. Well, in that day the MSM was all there was, there were no real alternatives.

Finally, the current Iraqi/Afgani campaigns suffer from those same domestic problems. They are winnable, but are endangered by those same negative elements that eventually doomed the Vietnam campaign. Our current campaigns are quite winnable, however we must now, like then, obtain and maintain the will to do so.

Note: I refer to Global Socialist/Communist Totalitarianism instead of just Communism for a reason: What was being implemented by the “Other” side wasn’t really pure Communism: It wasn’t a “Classless/Propertyless” society. There was still an “Elite” class who dictated to the masses. That “Elite” class was allowed to “Own” things which the masses weren’t, and that runs contrary to the “Propertyless” ideal of pure Communism. Think about the Soviet Era Dachas for the political elite. Hence, I refer to it as being also Socialist, and Authoritarian/Totalitarian as well.

Sep 27, 2004 - 9:02 am 26. gb_in_ga:

John:

On the labels thing: I, for one, have no problem with the use of labels per se, as long as there are generally accepted accurate definitions of what those labels mean.

We need generally accurate labels to prevent confusion and name calling. That part pretty well speaks for itself.

We need accurate labels to prevent the sort of “Hijacking” that has happened with the term “Liberal” by the Left, who are not at all Liberal. Real, by the book Liberals are more embodied by the Libertarians. Too bad those caught a bad case of “Moonbat Fever”.

Also, I don’t agree with terms like “Neo-Con”. While I agree that there are meanings associated with that term, those meanings are not at all consistent nor necessary. The Left uses the term as a slur to refer to a group of hawks that they hate, one that is controlled by a Jewish cabal for greater Zionism. The term ACTUALLY refers to those centrist and conservative leaning Democrats that have been so put off by the raving nutcases of the Left wing of the Democrats (who are currently in power in that party) that they have left, joining the opposition party who happen to be Republicans, since the ‘Pubs seem to have erected a large enough tent to accommodate them and have largely acted like they want them. However, those “Neo-Cons” are not now and never really were hard core Conservatives, they didn’t really change their views. When one “Converts” to Conservatism isn’t (or shouldn’t) be a naming issue. A Conservative is a Conservative, whether he has converted just since 9-11 or has been one his whole life. And when one is labeled a particular “flavor” of Conservative when one actually isn’t a Conservative is misleading.

Hence, I can’t label myself a “Neo-Con”. It just doesn’t apply. I was a Libertarian leaning Independent who usually voted Republican because the Democrats were so adamately opposed to the principles of true Liberty, and the more ideologically compatible Libertarians were still nutcases to an extent. They didn’t stand a chance of election to anything but local offices And they still don’t. They just aren’t electable. So why waste my vote? And then, along came 9-11, and I waved bye-bye to the Libertarians altogether, forever, burning my bridges, since they headed off on the moonbat trail. Anyway, I have NEVER aligned myself with the Democrats. And I still consider myself to be a libertarian (little “l”). Hence, I’m no Conservative. Ok, I hold some ideals that are ìConservative compatibleî, and some that aren’t compatible with the prevalent views that are held on this blog. But I’m not going to go into those now, as that serves no constructive purpose at this point and serves to detract from the much more pressing issue at hand, that being the preservation of Western Liberal Culture from the forces that are attempting to kill it and enslave us. While we may have differences ñ grave gut-level differences on issues that have become emotionally felt and heated ñ I feel that we may become allies against this greater evil facing us, and work on those other differences when the mortal danger has been neutralized. In other words, it is coalition time, it is just that under our political system the coalition has to form under the canopy of 1 particular party’s tent in order to be effective.

Sep 27, 2004 - 10:07 am 27. Michael B:

Very much agree, certainly so in terms of the broad brush strokes, with gb_in_ga’s contrasts. Where the terms “liberal” and liberal (with and w/o the disqualifying quotes) are used the terms pseudo-liberal and classical liberal respectively might also be used, as one alternative only.

Leftist’s, who in point of historical fact are much more inclined toward authoritarian than classical liberal impulses, have been largely successful in writing some of the most pivotal meta-narratives of the last century. In doing so, in coopting so much of the content of the West’s social/political vocabulary, root and branch, they’ve also added what are essentially successful Gramscian forays into the West’s most basic institutions. That is not said to imply any inherent “bad” quality necessarily, but rather to more simply note that as an historical fact and point of reference.

Also agree entirely with John Moore, but it’s precisely the obviousness of language’s abstract nature, a kind of nominalism vis-a-vis the reality it seeks to describe (or evade if the motivation is guile and obfuscation), that prompted the initial observation.

Sep 27, 2004 - 10:07 am 28. gb_in_ga:

Oops! In my previous post, where I said “accurate”, please replace with “accepted”.

Duh! Wake Up, Me!

Sep 27, 2004 - 10:09 am 29. gb_in_ga:

Double Oops! In my prior post, please limit that replacement to the 2nd paragraph only!

Think, Me! Think, before Type!

Sep 27, 2004 - 10:11 am 30. thedragonflies:

There may not be much similarity between the wars of Viet Nam and Iraq, but the anti-war movements against Viet Nam and Iraq are virtually identical. “Quagmire” anyone?

Beware of the coming further vilification of the troops in the field. The anti-Viet Nam movement was founded on dishonoring the effort in all ways possible.

They dishonored the motivations, calling the war a grab for mineral rights in the area, to the fevered paranoid ravings of people afflicted with the mental and emotional sickness of those obsessed with anti-communism. Sound familiar? Blood for oil? Nasty, obsessed neocons behind it all?

Then, after a little bit of time, they moved on to dishonoring the acts of the troops in the field, so that when Mi Lai surfaced in the news, an attrocity like attrocities that happen in every war, it became the signature event of the war in most peoples’ minds. Proof of the nature of the war, to destroy and plunder and ruin the country, not to liberate it or help it in any way. Abu Ghraib anyone?

So, stay tuned for attacks on the character of the troops as the anti-war movement follows the template laid down by the anti-Viet Nam movement.

Sep 27, 2004 - 12:33 pm 31. Beldar:

Roger wrote,

I have posted ad infinitum that I think “liberal” and “conservative” have become junk terms.

I tend to agree, so I was much amused when I took your advertising survey and found that one of the choices in the pull-down menu, in addition to “liberal” and “conservative,” was “royalist.” Yeah, that’s the ticket!

Sep 27, 2004 - 2:29 pm 32. gb_in_ga:

Beldar:

Ok, I’ll chime in on that idea — Since I’m to assume that the “liberal” selection actually refers to Leftist, I was left with no real home: libertarian. I ended up choosing Conservative, and then explained in the comments why that wasn’t actually so.

Sep 27, 2004 - 2:52 pm

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