Bush uses Vietnam to argue for continuation of Iraq war
President Bush tried to argue for staying in Iraq using Vietnam as a historical example. “Does he think we should have stayed in Vietnam?” asked Vietnam historian Stanley Karnow.
In a speech before the Veterans of Foreign Wars on Wednesday, President Bush warned that a withdrawal of US troops from Iraq would lead to mass bloodshed similar to what happened in Southeast Asia after the Vietnam War. He referenced the killing fields in Cambodia and the re-educution camps in Vietnam.
* President Bush: “There was another price to our withdrawal from Vietnam, and we can hear it in the words of the enemy we face in today’s struggle — those who came to our soil and killed thousands of citizens on September the 11th, 2001. In an interview with a Pakistani newspaper after the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden declared that “the American people had risen against their government’s war in Vietnam. And they must do the same today.”
Bush’s speech appears to be part of a coordinated White House effort to bolster support for the war ahead of the debate on Capitol Hill in September.
Vietnam historian Stanley Karnow told USA Today, Bush is reaching for historical analogies that don’t track. He said Vietnam was not a bunch of sectarian groups fighting each other as in Iraq. In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge toppled a U.S.-backed government.
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