I believe muslim nations treat women as second class citizens. So aren't you glad that being a woman you are in the US?
. January 11, 2007 SouthAmerica: Tonight I was watching George W. Bushâs speech about his new strategy for Iraq â a way forward. My impression was that it was a speech of a defeated man â he knows that the United States has lost that war in Iraq and it is just a matter of time for US troops to withdraw from Iraq. What is amazing to me is that he left out of his speech one of the most important man in Iraq today and he never mentioned to the American public that the supreme Sunni leader of Iraq today is: Osama Bin Ladden. He mentioned on his speech that the situation in Iraq is not acceptable to him and to the American people â you know how inconvenienced most Americans are regarding the Iraq war - Americans continue driving their SUVâs everywhere and the price of gas is up since March 2003, Americans got so many tax cuts that the wealthiest Americans donât know what to do with all the money that they have coming out of their ears, and they also have to take care of 2 or 3 houses that they bought on credit and so on⦠In the other hand the Iraqis are having a great time in Iraq â they have had no water for the last 4 years, no garbage pick up, they have electric power for 2 hours per day if they live in a good neighborhood, and most Iraqis are lucky if they leave the from door of their houses and donât get kill by some kind of bombing or by some militia. With unemployment running at 60 percent of the population, and with all the educated people leaving the country (more than 1 million educated Iraqis left their country) â other than that everything else is going well in Iraq. Today the United States government is looking so âPatheticâ that I wonder how the American people let this country reach such a low point. George W. Bush does not have a clue about what is really happening in Iraq â besides being engulfed on a nasty sectarian civil war that has been spinning completely out of control for a long time. About 3 weeks ago one of these generals that the major television and cable channels bring all the time to up date the American people on what is happening in Iraq â I donât remember if it was CNBC, CNN, or Nightline â but the American general mentioned that by the latest Pentagon estimates there were â23 independent militiasâ including Kurdish, Sunnis and Shiites fighting among themselves in Iraq and they were all trying to get a piece of the pie. And never mind all the criminal gangs roaming around that are taking advantage of the massive mess in Iraq. It is sad to see how delusional George W. Bush has become â he actually believe that the government that he installed in the âGreen Zoneâ it is the legitim government of Iraq. Without US government protection the government of the âGreen Zoneâ would not last even ten minutes. When George W. Bush mentioned that he was ready to fight his war on terror and I guess he is even willing to spread his mess in Iraq to include also Syria, and Iran - he said he was going after Al-Qaeda and so on. But he did not say a word about the obvious that the entire world knows about â not only that Osama bin Ladden is the new supreme Sunni leader in Iraq, but also that Osama Bin Ladden and his group Al-Qaeda is training in peace and untouchable by the United States in Pakistan â And Osama Bin Ladden and Al-Qaeda are being protected by the Pakistani government and its 100 nuclear warheads. First, Osama Bin Ladden helped drive the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan â and the Soviets were never able to recover from that defeat. And after Saddam Husseinâs execution Osama Bin Ladden took the leadership of the insurgency in Iraq. Osama Bin Ladden knows that he is winning another war in Iraq â and this time around he is defeating the other superpower. Osama Bin Ladden has a global reach and he can cause a lot of pain to the United States around the world. The rest of the world must be thinking what happened to the United States â how such an idiot became president of that country? In a Nutshell: George W. Bush is making the United States look like a âBanana Republicâ to the rest of the world. The only thing I can say is I agree with my friend. A friend of mine â a Republican â told me that in the last 3 weeks he went to 2 meetings with a group that is planning to go to Washington D.C. do demonstrate and ask Congress to âImpeach George W. Bush and Dick Cheneyâ. He also told me that he got a sign that he did put in front of his house which is located on a very busy corner â the sign said âImpeach Bush/Cheneyâ â the sign lasted less than 24 hours since during the night someone stole his sign. He is replacing that sign with various signs and he will nail them down this time around. .
. February 4, 2007 SouthAmerica: CNN News late last night was saying that a truck bomb killed 135 people in Iraq, and wounded another 343 people. According to Reuters around 1,000 people have been killed across Iraq in the past week in suicide bombings, mortar bomb attacks and fighting between security forces and militantsâ¦. The sectarian civil war is spinning completely out of control and probably it will get even worse in the coming months. But the United States government found a way of getting some good news for the American people regarding the war in Iraq. The US government found a way to reduce the number of wounded American soldiers in Iraq that was approaching 50,000 soldiers. From Monday to Tuesday of this past week the number of American soldiers wounded in the Iraq war as reported by the US government went from 50,000 to around 35,000 â they found a new way to âfudgeâ the numbers to make it look a little more palatable to the American public. I guess under the new counting system if a soldier lost only one arm or one leg then he is not considered to be wounded â unless you have your guts spread all over the pavement then you are not considered to be a wounded soldier. *********** âIraq vows action after truck bomb kills 135â By Dean Yates Reuters - 04 Feb 2007 BAGHDAD, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Iraq's government renewed its pledge to crack down on militants after a massive suicide truck bomb killed 135 people in a mainly Shi'ite area of Baghdad. Saturday's attack was the deadliest single bombing since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. It shocked even Iraqis accustomed to relentless violence that threatens to plunge the country into full-scale sectarian civil war. Around 1,000 people have been killed across Iraq in the past week in suicide bombings, mortar bomb attacks and fighting between security forces and militants, according to figures compiled by Reuters from official sources. "What did we do?" said one elderly man as he wailed in front of gutted shopfronts and homes in the Sadriya market on Sunday. Residents wandered the normally bustling street in central Baghdad, staring at masses of tangled concrete and steel hanging from what was left of the two and three-storey buildings. A bulldozer had been called in to clear rubble. Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki blamed the blast on Saddam Hussein supporters and other Sunni militants. "We are determined to root out (the perpetrators of) these crimes and cut off their roots, their sources and their supporters," Maliki's office said in a statement late on Saturday. Maliki vowed in January to launch a crackdown in the capital to crush insurgents who have defied attempts by his government to get control of security, but it has not yet begun. U.S. President George W. Bush is sending 21,500 reinforcements to Iraq, most earmarked for the Baghdad offensive, despite vocal opposition at home, especially among Democrats who now control both houses of Congress. Ordinary Iraqis are increasingly frustrated at the government's inability to curb the violence. "We are fed up with the government falling short in protecting us. After four years our blood still flows," said Abu Sajad, 37, a worker living in the Sadriya area. In fresh violence on Sunday, a mortar bomb killed a woman and two children in a mixed neighbourhood in central Baghdad, residents said. More than 300 people were wounded in the Sadriya blast, caused when the bomber drove his truck, packed with one tonne of explosives, into the crowded market. The planned U.S.-Iraqi offensive in Baghdad is seen as a last-ditch effort to stem worsening bloodshed between minority Sunni Arabs and politically dominant majority Shi'ites. Similar crackdowns in the capital have failed in the past. Maliki's critics say an offensive last summer failed because the Iraqi army committed too few troops and because he was reluctant to confront the Mehdi Army militia of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, a key political ally. The Pentagon has said the Mehdi Army now poses a greater threat to peace in Iraq than Sunni Islamist al Qaeda. A U.S. intelligence report said on Friday that escalating sectarian violence met the definition of civil war. The report also said a rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces would lead to massive civilian casualties and possible intervention in the conflict by Iraq's neighbors. (Additional reporting by Aseel Kami and Ahmed Rasheed) .
. April 9, 2007 SouthAmerica: Chief of Staff of the Iraqi Republican Guard gives television interview in Qatar. Sayf Al-Din Fulayyih Hasan Taha Al-Rawi is the former Republican Guard Chief of Staff. The ironic part of this headline news story is that Mr. Al-Rawi is among the 55 most wanted Iraqis sought by US-led forces, and thereâs a US$ 1 million prize about any information that would help the United States forces find this fellow. I guess he is in Qatar giving television interviews for the entire world to see it. ************ âUS accused of using Neutron bombsâ Aljazeera.net, Qatar April 9, 2007 The former commander of Iraq's Republican Guard has accused the US of using non-conventional weapons in its war against the Middle East country. Saifeddin Fulayh Hassan Taha al-Rawi told Al Jazeera that US forces used neutron and phosphorus bombs during their assault on Baghdad airport before the April 9 capture of the Iraqi capital. Al-Rawi is one of the most wanted associates of Saddam Hussein, the deposed Iraqi leader, still on the run. "The enemy used neutron and phosphorus weapons against Baghdad airport... there were bodies burnt to their bones," he said. The bombs annihilated soldiers but left the buildings and infrastructure at the airport intact, he added. A neutron bomb is a thermonuclear weapon that produces minimal blast and heat but releases large amounts of lethal radiation that can penetrate armour and is especially destructive to human tissue. About 2,000 elite Republican Guard troops "fought until they were martyred", according to al-Rawi. He said the Iraqi military command was surprised by the speed of the US land offensive, expecting air bombardment to last much longer. "We had not expected the enemy to launch its land offensive from the very first or second day. We expected the air raids to last at least a month," he said. "The land offensive came at the same time as the air offensive. That was a situation we did not expect," he told Al Jazeera. Al-Rawi, who carries a $1m US bounty on his head, was also the jack of clubs on the deck of cards of 55 most wanted Iraqis distributed by the Pentagon before the invasion in 2003. Sayf Al-Din Fulayyih Hasan Taha Al-Rawi â Republican Guard Chief of Staff. Al-Rawi is among the 55 most wanted Iraqis sought by US-led forces. ******** Front-page story on major Brazilian newspaper GUERRA SEM FIM âChefe militar de Saddam procurado pelos EUA aparece na TVâ da France Presse A Folha de Sao Paulo 9 de Abril de 2007 Um dos homens mais procurados pelos agentes americanos, Saifedine Fulayh Hassan Taha Al Rawi, ex-chefe do Estado-Maior da Guarda Republicana iraquiana, foi entrevistado neste domingo pela TV Al Jazira do Qatar. Em sua primeira aparição desde a queda do regime de Saddam Hussein, Rawi acusou o exército dos Estados Unidos de ter usado "bombas de nêutrons e de fósforo contra as tropas iraquianas na batalha do aeroporto internacional de Bagdá", quatro dias antes da queda da capital iraquiana, em 9 de abril de 2003. A Al Jazira não especificou o lugar nem a data da entrevista com Al Rawi, sob quem pesa uma recompensa de um milhão de dólares. Nas imagens mostradas, era difÃcil identificar seu rosto. A TV transmitiu a primeira parte da entrevista, por ocasião do quarto aniversário desses fatos. O ex-chefe da Guarda Republicana --corpo de elite do regime deposto-- justificou a rápida derrota militar de seus homens afirmando que eles terem sido surpreendidos pela tática dos americanos e britânicos. "Não havÃamos previsto que o inimigo lançaria sua ofensiva terrestre desde o primeiro dia. Esperávamos que as incursões aéreas durassem não menos pelo menos um mês", explicou. .
. April 11, 2007 SouthAmerica: Americans believe in outsourcing most American jobs to other countries â why the Pentagon donât outsource the fighting in Iraq and in Afghanistan to other countries? The Pentagon also has another source of people in the United States if they want to â just offer a green card and eventually American citizenship to all the Mexicans who are already living in the United States illegally. *********** âPay soars to keep people in militaryâ By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer AP â Associated Press - Wed Apr 11, 2007 WASHINGTON - The Pentagon poured more than $1 billion into bonuses last year to keep soldiers and Marines in the military in the face of an unpopular war and battlefield deployments that are getting longer and more frequent. The incentives â including tax-free payments for those who re-enlist while in the war zone â have jumped nearly sixfold since 2003, the year the war in Iraq began. "It helps a lot of guys out," said Sgt. 1st Class Richard Doran, who re-enlisted late last year during his tour in Iraq. "And I think it does sway some of the decisions to stay in when guys are on the fence trying to decide." The size and number of bonuses have grown as officials scrambled to meet the steady demand for troops on the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan and reverse sporadic shortfalls in the number of National Guard and Reserve soldiers willing to sign on for multiple tours. On Wednesday, officials said the Pentagon is thinking about lengthening tours of duty for all active-duty Army units in Iraq to 15 months instead of 12. Besides underscoring the extraordinary steps the Pentagon must take to maintain fighting forces, the rise in costs for re-enlistment incentives is putting strains on the defense budget, already strapped by the massive costs of waging war and equipping and caring for a modern military. The bonuses can range from a few thousand dollars to as much as $150,000 for very senior special forces soldiers who re-enlist for six years. All told, the Army and Marines spent $1.03 billion for re-enlistment payments last year, compared with $174 million in 2003, the year the war in Iraq began. The Associated Press compiled and analyzed the budget figures from the military services for this story. "War is expensive," said Col. Mike Jones, who oversees retention issues for the National Guard. "Winning a war, however, is less expensive than losing one." The soaring budget for re-enlistment bonuses â particularly for the Guard and Reserves, which have seen the most dramatic cost increases â has prompted some observers to question whether the country can still afford its volunteer force. "I believe the whole issue of the affordability of the volunteer force is something we need to look at," said Arnold Punaro, who heads an independent panel established by Congress to study the National Guard and Reserves. The higher bonuses come as support for the war continues to wane both in Congress and with the American public. That decline is fueling concerns that more soldiers will leave the military under pressure from families who fear the rising death toll and are weary of the lengthy and repeated overseas deployments. The Iraq war has claimed the lives of at least 3,280 U.S. troops to date. Incentives for Army Guard and Reserve members combined have skyrocketed from about $27 million in 2003 to more than $335 million in 2006. The active Army, meanwhile, poured more than $600 million into these payments last year, a six-fold increase from $98 million in 2003. The Army gave two out of every three soldiers who re-enlisted a bonus last year, compared to less than two in 10 who received one during 2003. Those who don't get bonuses are generally in jobs that are not in high demand or are not in war zones. For example, certain artillery crewmembers who re-enlisted outside Afghanistan or Iraq would receive no bonus, said Army spokesman Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty. Bonuses for Marines have nearly doubled, from about $50 million in 2003 to nearly $90 million in 2006. The incentives help the military compete with private employers who often pay much higher salaries, Hilferty said. "Soldiers with valuable skills and experience are aggressively sought after by industry," Hilferty said. He said while the extra money is important, "people don't re-enlist in a wartime Army for $13,000. ... If soldiers didn't think they were doing the right thing for the right reason, they would get out and get a job back home." He said soldiers with special skills can get bonuses between $10,000 and $30,000, with a select few eligible for payments up to $50,000. Only very few highly qualified special forces soldiers would get the top bonus of $150,000. Nearly all soldiers deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait get a maximum of $15,000 for re-enlisting, just a bit more than the average. Bonuses for Marines in certain critical specialties can go as high as $60,000 for a new four-year tour. On average a Marine who re-enlists this year can receive as much as $24,000. About eight in 10 Marines with up to six years of service will get a bonus this year, as will more than half of those with six to 14 years in the Corps. Punaro, chairman of the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves, calls the soaring costs "a ticking time bomb." "My instinct tells me ... that the Guard and Reserve will continue to be a real bargain for the taxpayer" because the costs for the active duty military have gone up a lot more, he said. So far, the extra cash appears to be working. The active Army, the Guard and the Army Reserve are all on track to meet their re-enlistment goals for the fiscal year that will end Sept. 30. For Doran, the decision netted him $15,000. The 38-yera-old soldier, who is based in Pennsylvania, works full-time for the Guard, and he signed on for another six-year tour just before he returned home from Iraq. By doing it then, the bonus was tax-free, because he was on the battlefront when he re-enlisted. Still, for some who have been sent to war as many as three times, the money isn't enough. "We had some that, once we got back, opted to say goodbye and just leave. Some guys said the money did play a part in their decision to stay, others said the $15,000 wasn't worth it." Jones of the Guard said boosting the maximum re-enlistment bonus from $5,000 to $15,000 caused most of the budget increase. And, he said, more soldiers signed up than anticipated. "When we're at peace, and when we're not deploying units, the bonuses probably don't need to be what they are today," said Jones. "When the risks are lowered, the reward would be lowered. But one of reasons we struggled in 2005 and 2004 is because we were slow as a nation to increase the rewards at the same time as we increased the risk." ___ On the Net: U.S. Army: http://www.army.mil/ National Guard Bureau: http://www.ngb.army.mil/default.aspx U.S. Marine Corps: http://www.hqmc.usmc.mil/ .
. April 12, 2007 SouthAmerica: As we can see the United States has things really under control in Baghdad. You can see the picture of a very important bridge in Baghdad on the following web site: http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1260231,00.html ********** Truck Bomb Wrecks Bridge Sky News Thursday April 12, 2007 At least 10 people have been killed by a suicide bomb strike on a major bridge in the Iraqi capital. The blast in Baghdad is thought to have come from a truck packed with explosives. It collapsed the steel structure and sent cars toppling into the Tigris river below. A further 26 people were wounded, according to hospital officials. Police said four or five cars had fallen into the river and warned that the death toll could rise. Officers were trying to rescue as many as 20 people whose cars plummeted into the water. Hours after the blast, twisted girders were still sinking into the water. The al Sarafiya bridge connects two northern Baghdad neighbourhoods - Azamiyah, a mostly Sunni enclave, and Bab al Muazam, a mixed area. It is often used by minibuses and commercial vehicles travelling from the centre of the city to markets in the northern suburbs. The bomber would have had to negotiate checkpoints like those placed at the entrances to most of the many bridges that cross the Tigris in Baghdad. .
. "Brazil engineer seized in Iraq is dead" Reuters - 15 June 2007 BRASILIA - A Brazilian engineer who was kidnapped in Iraq in 2005 while working on a reconstruction project has been confirmed dead, the government said on Thursday. The remains of Joao Jose Vasconcellos were identified and the body has been sent home, a Foreign Ministry statement said. The ministry said the body had been identified through forensic tests but gave no further details. âGod wanted this way. Itâs very painful,â Karla Vasconcellos, Joao Joseâs sister, told the Globo TV network. âItâs very sad but we will endure.â More than 200 foreigners and thousands of Iraqis have been kidnapped since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. At least 60 foreign hostages have been killed. The incident hit a nerve in Brazil, where many people were critical of the invasion of Iraq. The Latin American nation had been shocked earlier when Brazilian Sergio Vieira de Mello, the senior UN envoy in Iraq, was killed in a bomb attack on the UN headquarters in Baghdad in August 2003. Vasconcellos worked for the Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht repairing a power plant near the central Iraqi city of Baiji. He was kidnapped on Jan. 19, 2005, on the way to Baghdad airport to fly back to Brazil after his convoy was attacked. Early reports said a group calling itself the Al Mujahideen Squadrons claimed responsibility for the ambush. The father of three was 50 at the time of his abduction. Government officials, relatives, members of Brazilâs Arab and Islamic communities, as well as sports stars and other celebrities, had made appeals for Vasconcellosâ freedom. They included soccer star Ronaldo, who at the time played for Real Madrid, whose appeal was broadcast by Arab-language television stations Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya. Vasconcellos had worked for more than 20 years at Odebrecht. âOdebrecht is deeply sorry about the sad outcome of the disappearance of our dear friend Vasconcellos,â the construction company said in a statement. .
. August 16, 2007 SouthAmerica: I am not surprised by this US government statistic. For the Bush administration this is only another number anyway. âArmy soldiers committed suicide last year at the highest rate in 26 yearsâ¦The report, obtained by The Associated Press ahead of its scheduled release Thursday, found there were 99 confirmed suicides among active duty soldiers during 2006, up from 88 the previous yearâ¦â The US mainstream media has no guts to write about the soldiers who deserted the US Army and many of them are living today in Canada. I did see something on that subject on television about 2 years ago and at that time was estimated that about 5,000 American soldiers had moved to Canada to avoid having to go for the first time or go back to Iraq. ***************** âArmy suicides highest in 26 yearsâ By PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writer The associated Press â August 16, 2007 WASHINGTON - Army soldiers committed suicide last year at the highest rate in 26 years, and more than a quarter did so while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a new military report. The report, obtained by The Associated Press ahead of its scheduled release Thursday, found there were 99 confirmed suicides among active duty soldiers during 2006, up from 88 the previous year and the highest number since the 102 suicides in 1991 at the time of the Persian Gulf War. The suicide rate for the Army has fluctuated over the past 26 years, from last year's high of 17.3 per 100,000 to a low of 9.1 per 100,000 in 2001. Last year, "Iraq was the most common deployment location for both (suicides) and attempts," the report said. The 99 suicides included 28 soldiers deployed to the two wars and 71 who weren't. About twice as many women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan committed suicide as did women not sent to war, the report said. Preliminary numbers for the first half of this year indicate the number of suicides could decline across the service in 2007 but increase among troops serving in the wars, officials said. The increases for 2006 came as Army officials worked to set up a number of new and stronger programs for providing mental health care to a force strained by the longer-than-expected war in Iraq and the global counterterrorism war entering its sixth year. Failed personal relationships, legal and financial problems and the stress of their jobs were factors motivating the soldiers to commit suicide, according to the report. "In addition, there was a significant relationship between suicide attempts and number of days deployed" in Iraq, Afghanistan or nearby countries where troops are participating in the war effort, it said. The same pattern seemed to hold true for those who not only attempted, but succeeded in killing themselves. There also "was limited evidence to support the view that multiple ... deployments are a risk factor for suicide behaviors," it said. About a quarter of those who killed themselves had a history of at least one psychiatric disorder. Of those, about 20 percent had been diagnosed with a mood disorder such as bipolar disorder and/or depression; and 8 percent had been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, including post traumatic stress disorder â one of the signature injuries of the conflict in Iraq. Firearms were the most common method of suicide. Those who attempted suicide but didn't succeed tended more often to take overdoses and cut themselves. In a service of more than a half million troop, the 99 suicides amounted to a rate of 17.3 per 100,000 â the highest in the past 26 years, the report said. The average rate over those years has been 12.3 per 100,000. The rate for those serving in the wars stayed about the same, 19.4 per 100,000 in 2006, compared with 19.9 in 2005. The Army said the information was compiled from reports collected as part of its suicide prevention program â reports required for all "suicide-related behaviors that result in death, hospitalization or evacuation" of the soldier. It can take considerable time to investigate a suicide and, in fact, the Army said that in addition to the 99 confirmed suicides last year, there are two other deaths suspected as suicides in which investigations were pending. Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070816/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/army_suicides .
. August 23, 2007 SouthAmerica: Yesterday George W. Bush on his speech he was trying very hard to make the connection of Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea - (Taiwan) - regarding its independence and democracy. How American influence helped to develop an independent democratic state in Japan, South Korea and also in Taiwan. The United States really supports the independence movement in Taiwan â and the United States have been very supportive of Taiwan since they got kicked out from the United Nations. George W. Bush has put on the line the United States reputation on that regard and to prove it the real test about the connection between American democratic ideals and influence in Asian countries and the concept of a population of a country wanting its independence â it canât be more visible than in Taiwan. There is no doubt about it that âTaiwanâ represents the real test for George W. Bushâs latest geopolitical theories. The Mainland China government probably did not appreciate the implications that George W. Bushâs speech had regarding the on going conflict between Mainland China and Taiwan. Or the other possibility of âthis democracy and independence stuffâ - it does not apply when it causes an inconvenience for the government of the United States. PS: George W. Bush must be getting very desperate when he uses a war that the United States lost in Vietnam as âthe new modelâ to be followed on his Iraq War. ************ âPresident compares Vietnam, Iraq warsâ Innocents would perish if US pulled out, he says By Farah Stockman and Bryan Bender, Globe Staff The Boston Globe - August 23, 2007 WASHINGTON -- After years of rejecting the comparison, President Bush surprised observers yesterday by invoking the "painful and complex" legacy of Vietnam as an example of why the US military must continue fighting in Iraq, declaring that America must not "abandon" Iraqis who are struggling to build a free society. Speaking before the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Kansas City, Mo., Bush pointed to the deaths of "tens of thousands" of allies, intellectuals, and businessmen in Vietnam who were executed or sent to prison camps after US forces left the country. He also suggested that the US withdrawal from the region spurred the genocidal killings by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. "One unmistakable legacy of Vietnam," Bush said, "is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens, whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 'reeducation camps,' and 'killing fields.' " The president's speech -- which likened the cur rent struggle against Islamic terrorists to wars against imperialist Japan and communists in Indochina -- was given just a few weeks before General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, will deliver a much-anticipated report on military and political progress, which is likely to reignite the heated congressional debate on the war. Bush's bold decision to compare Iraq to Vietnam, a conflict that took more than 58,000 American lives, caused a stir among political analysts and historians. They said most Americans regard the US involvement in Vietnam, which lasted for more than a decade, as a historic blunder and stinging military defeat. "I couldn't believe it," said Allan Lichtman, an American University historian, adding that far more Vietnamese died during the war than in the aftermath of the US withdrawal. Lichtman said the rise of the Khmer Rouge, a brutal pro-communist regime, could as easily be attributed to American interference in that country. The president's portrayal of the conflict "is not revisionist history. It is fantasy history," Lichtman said. Melvin Laird, secretary of defense under President Nixon from 1969 to 1973, said Bush is drawing the wrong lessons from history. "I don't think what happened in Cambodia after the war has anything to do with Iraq," Laird said. "Is he saying we should have invaded Cambodia? That's what we would have had to do, and we would have never done that. I don't see how he draws the parallel." Other historians said Bush bypassed the fact that, after the painful US withdrawal was completed in April 1975, Vietnam stabilized and developed into an economically thriving country that is now a friend of the United States. Many neoconservatives who helped shape the Bush administration's policies on Iraq have long argued that the United States was wrong to abandon the South Vietnamese in the war against the communist north. Vietnam was the defining context for neocons," said Joshua Muravchik, a self-described neoconservative and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning Washington think tank. "We believed communism was the evil of our time, and it was right to fear it, it was right to hate it, was right to fight against it as best we could." Some of the neoconservatives in the Bush administration applied this philosophy in the fight against Islamic extremism after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- including former deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, a key architect of the Iraq war, and Richard Perle, a former Pentagon policy adviser. To many in this circle, analysts say, the bitter lesson of Vietnam was not that the United States fought a misguided war, but rather that US troops withdrew too soon. In April, Vice President Dick Cheney -- who served in the Nixon and Ford administrations during the Vietnam era -- appeared to suggest this in a speech in Chicago to financial supporters and board members of the conservative Heritage Foundation, a Washington policy institute. Military withdrawal from Iraq, Cheney said, would trigger a replay of the same "scenes of abandonment and retreat and regret" that followed the US military's departure from Vietnam. He likened recent Democratic calls for withdrawal to the "far left" antiwar policies espoused by former senator George McGovern of South Dakota, the Democrats' nominee for president in 1972. "When the United States turns away from our friends, only tragedy can follow, and the lives and hopes of millions are lost forever," Cheney said. Last year, James Jeffrey, a Vietnam veteran who has worked as a top State Department official on Iraq policy both in Baghdad and Washington, told a congressional committee that the United States was on the verge of victory in Vietnam. Aided by American forces, the South Vietnamese Army "in the end did defeat the Viet Cong insurgency, stopped the North Vietnamese in 1972, and under slightly different circumstances would have stopped it again in 1975," Jeffrey said, referring to the South Vietnamese's strong resistance to the North's 1972 offensive. But as widespread protests over the war rocked the country, Congress mandated that the United States cease its assistance to South Vietnam, and most American combat forces had withdrawn by 1973; the South Vietnamese Army collapsed and was overrun two years later. Andrew Bacevich, professor of international relations at Boston University and a West Point graduate, said the view that the United States and its allies were winning the war in Vietnam is "not mainstream," but a small segment of historians has begun asserting that the United States did defeat the communists there. Those scholars, Bacevich said, believe that lack of political will in Washington, not a military loss, led to the humiliating US withdrawal. "From the revisionist point of view, it was the dirty politicians in Washington who back in 1975 denied the Vietnamese the victory," Bacevich said. "When the president makes these references to politicians 'pulling the rug out from the troops,' it is alluding to that sort of 'betrayal.' " Yesterday, Bush told the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention that the "surge" of additional US troops to secure Iraq has been working. He warned Congress not to erase those military gains with a premature withdrawal. "Our troops are seeing the progress that is being made on the ground," Bush said. "And as they take the initiative from the enemy, they have a question: Will their elected leaders in Washington pull the rug out from under them just as they're gaining momentum and changing the dynamic on the ground in Iraq?" Bush said Osama bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, are relying on the American people to force a withdrawal from Iraq, just as unrest in the streets forced troops from Vietnam. Bush quoted from a letter he said Zawahiri had written that declared that the American public knows "there is no hope of victory." "Here at home, some can argue our withdrawal from Vietnam carried no price for American credibility, but the terrorists see it differently," Bush said. "Bin Laden has declared that the war in Iraq is for you or us to win; if we win it, it means your disgrace and defeat forever." Source: http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2007/08/23/president_compares_vietnam_iraq_wars/ .
What , are you crazy? I'm sure he's still trying to figure out where "asia" is, much less taiwan or japan. As for the vietnam allusions, total rubbish really. The moratorium on attacking said enemy troops in cambodia was , in essence, a good portion of the reasons for failure, not that they didnt, illegally, more than a few times. apart from the same moratorium on attacking enemy troops in thailand, and golly gosh, red china, for example. At the end of the day, its a furphy, a bollocks argument, when your talking about a proxy war to begin with. Iran, syria, pakistan.........proxy proxy proxy, dubya aint got his head screwed on right to be talking about vietnam, outside of that specific, proxy war context. jmo. "veterans of foreign wars convention" says it all really.