“The greatest mistake we made in failing in Vietnam was we never understood the people we were fighting.”  -- Robert McNamara

Back during Vietnam, for 12 long years we continuously heard the same rhetoric that we’re hearing now - we were not going to “cut and run,” we were going to “stay the course” until the Vietnamese could stand up for themselves which “will probably be by the end of next year,” but because we were so profoundly ignorant of the psychology and culture of the Vietnamese, the War dragged on for 12 long years and we were finally forced to “cut and run” in the most disgraceful and shameful defeat in American history … a defeat we are absolutely certain to repeat in Iraq and whatever other countries Bush’s mania gets us involved in. 

How many Americans ended up having to serve in the Vietnam War? 

8,744,000 

In 1963, when Kennedy was shot, there were 16,300 American “Advisors” in Vietnam, but ten years later, in 1973, when we were forced to admit we were wrong, couldn’t win and abandoned Vietnam:

• 8,744,000 beautiful American men and woman had had their lives disrupted, destroyed or ended;
•  Over 59,000 Americans killed or missing (average age 19);  
• Leaving 20,000 children orphaned for the rest of their lives; 
• Over 150,000 maimed or permanently disabled, leaving their arms and legs in Vietnam rice patties  
• … and over 3 million Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians, and Indonesians killed.

The Vietnamese Election had a greater turnout than the Iraq Election

In September 1967, the Vietnamese held an election to decide their own government with an over 80% turnout, better than the Iraqi election.  We were told then that this was a new day of freedom for Vietnam, a major breakthrough that would soon allow us to start withdrawing our first forces. 

We also heard the same “stay-the-course” rhetoric we’re hearing today, calling those who wanted to leave cowards, and predicting the Vietnamese were well on the way of becoming a free, sovereign nation.  Yet, seven long years of bloodshed later, with over 35,000 more Americans killed, and 80,000 more maimed and permanently disabled, with our tail between our legs, in shame and disgrace, we were forced to abandon Vietnam – to “cut and run” … all because we had no idea of the psychology and culture of the people we were fighting.

The same profound ignorance of the Arab and Islamic psychology and culture is already creating another Major American Catastrophe in Iraq, another Vietnam, only far, far worse unless we replace our troops before it’s too late, and get rid of Bush and Cheney and their rubber stamped war mongering Congress before it’s too late!

China never entered the Vietnam War as we were told they would, but already Iraq has Iran and Syria behind it, with Russia and China secretly behind Iran and Syria

Though we were told that China would enter the Vietnam War it never did, and though we were fighting only the small country of North Vietnam with some behind the scenes support by China, for 12 long years we could never defeat North Vietnam, or establish a free democracy there.  But, thank God, the war never spread throughout the peninsula and the Far East.  Had it done so we would have been even more disgracefully routed and humiliated.

It is just the opposite in Iraq.  The Iraq Civil War has already spread throughout the region with two additional Civil Wars in Lebanon and Palestine.  Bush and Cheney’s delusional systems never allowed them to see that the war in Iraq was already part of a deeper “proxy” war with Iran and Syria, who are using Hezbollah and Hamas to attack the United States, just as they are still too blinded to see that the spread of the Iraq war to Lebanon and Palestine, with Iran and Syria behind Hezbollah and Hamas, and with Russia and China behind Iran and Syria -- and that’s just the beginning.  Even when a temporary ceasefire was brokered – the new ‘proxy’ form of World War III with Iran and Syria, Russia and China will continue for the next decade in Iraq and Afghanistan, the building of nuclear weapons in Iran and North Korea … and who knows where else. 

Iran is now the controlling power in the Middle East

Under Bush and Cheney’s blundering, Iran – THE Shiite country – now is in control of Iraq in a way that was impossible under the psychotic tyrant Hussein.  Their Shiite puppets control the Parliament, the Iraqi military, the Iraqi police, the Shiite militias and everything else, just as their Shiite minions control Hezbollah. 

Because of our astonishing ignorance of the Arab and Muslim psychology, culture and religion, just as we were profoundly ignorant of the Vietnamese mentality, even if the war was just contained to Iraq it would be Vietnam all over again, only far worse, because – from the beginning – this has been a religious and cultural war with Muslims all over the world, as well as a war against free sovereign nations everywhere who have a ferocious determination not to let Bush succeed to occupy Iraq for it’s oil with his Bush Doctrine of Imperialism -  to dominate and control the world, starting with dominating and controlling Iraq and the Middle East.

Far worse than Vietnam, Iraq has become World War III, which is only going to get far, far worse unless we renounce and destroy the Bush Doctrine of Imperialism by enacting immediately the “Give back the oil – Replace our troops immediately” Exit Plan (or a better one), and if it is absolutely necessary, impeach Bush and Cheney before the nuclear catastrophe is inevitable. 

Why leaving makes us stronger militarily and morally

Bush and Cheney have spread our military so thin they are close to becoming impotent, even though we have the greatest, most skilled soldiers and technology the world has ever known.  In more time than it took us to fight an win World War II on two separate continents, Bush and Cheney’s ignorant policies are still failing so miserably in Afghanistan we still have never been able to capture either Osama or Omar, the head of the Taliban, and added to our even more miserable failure in Iraq, where over 100 Iraqis are killed every day – over 6000 killed since May, and thousands more killed every month – even though we were told that once Zarqawi was killed that would be a turning point.  By failing so miserably to secure even Baghdad, we have revealed to the whole world that our massive military power, under Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld’s leadership, is incompetent and stretched so thin it encourages terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah to openly attack knowing we can’t fight back militarily.

In Vietnam our Ambassador Negropanti tells how he could walk freely around Saigon without fear of being harmed, but in Baghdad, now head of Homeland Security, Negropanti doesn’t dare leave the hotel without a strong escort.  Almost 100 journalists have been killed in Iraq. 

How weak are we militarily by “staying the course”?

We could do nothing if North Korea invaded South Korea tomorrow

If North Korea sent its million man army across the border to the capitol of South Korea, Seoul, only 30 miles away, what could we possibly do?  Nothing!  Our 30,000 troops on the border would be wiped out immediately … and it is inconceivable that we could drop nuclear bombs on North Korea and not render asunder the entire world by starting a nuclear war – and only God knows where that would end. 

By replacing our troops in Iraq with a non-hated strong international G8 force, and bringing our troops home from Iraq, we could regroup them into a properly equipped, consolidated military force, able to be sent in a matter of hours anywhere in the world they would be needed – a fact the entire world would know.  If this was the case for our military now, neither Hezbollah nor Hamas would have provoked these wars for fear of our military response – which they now know, because of our failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, is both militarily and politically impossible.

Both North Korea and Iran can thumb their nose at us and openly defy our demands they stop building nuclear weapons because they both know we are so hopelessly stuck in two losing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that there isn’t anything we can do to backup our threat.

Leaving makes us stronger - staying the course is absolutely certain to create a more shameful disaster than Vietnam.