From The American Left History Blog Archives (2006) - On American Political Discourse  

Markin comment:

In the period 2006-2009 I, in vain, attempted to put some energy into analyzing the blossoming American presidential campaign since it was to be, as advertised at least, a watershed election, for women, blacks, old white anglos, latinos, youth, etc. In the event I had to abandon the efforts in about May of 2008 when it became obvious, in my face obvious, that the election would be a watershed only for those who really believed that it would be a watershed election. The four years of the Obama presidency, the 2012 American presidential election campaign, and world politics have only confirmed in my eyes that that abandonment was essentially the right decision at the right time. In short, let the well- paid bourgeois commentators go on and on with their twitter. I, we, had (have) better things to do like fighting against the permanent wars, the permanent war economies, the struggle for more and better jobs, and for a workers party that fights for a workers government . More than enough to do, right? Still a look back at some of the stuff I wrote then does not a bad feel to it. Read on.

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ON THE PARALLELS BETWEEN VIETNAM AND IRAQ

COMMENTARY

IMMEDIATE UNCONDITIONAL WITHDRAWAL OF U.S. TROOPS FROM IRAQ

As anyone who writes a political blog probably has become aware of sometimes you get drawn into a discussion that you really do not want to get involved in. Until very, very recently I have tried to NOT draw parallels between the American experience in the Vietnam War of my youth and the Iraq War of my old age. I broke that policy slightly over the last couple of weeks in comparing the fate of Nguyen Diem in Vietnam in 1963 and the possible fate of al-Maliki today in Iraq. In Diem’s case once the Kennedy Administration got disenchanted with him coup planning time began full time. Do not the tom toms out of Iraq drum that same siren song? Strangely, one George W. Bush, the President of the United States, had until very, very recently observed the same as I had not to draw parallels with Vietnam, for his own reasons of course. Now that his Iraq policy is clearly on the ropes he wants to invoke the supposed horrors of the ‘cut and run’ American policy in Vietnam as a reason to not cut and run in Iraq. And that, dear reader, is why a couple of brief comments are in order about those parallels.

Although the parallels between Vietnam and Iraq have absolutely nothing to do with the overwhelming American military capacity to return either society back to the Stone Age (as the Americans almost succeeded in doing with their various bombing strategies in Vietnam) it does have everything to do with the hubris behind that assumption. Was there really a hell of a lot of different between the assumptions of one War Secretary Robert McNamara and his “Whizz Kids” and one War Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his “Neo-Cons”?  I think not. The military capacity to level cities, either Hanoi or Fallujah, in order to create a security zone for the government is a house of cards. Does anyone today think that once the American troops either turn over military responsibly to the Iraqis or withdraw that the situation will be stable? Hell, no. As in Vietnam the forces in play are just waiting for the Americans leave to return. And seemingly, unlike Americans, they are patient. If the American troops stay ten more years they will wait. One only has to take a cursory glance at the history of the Vietnam conflict to find that same phenomena. There was an apt old army expression for it- ‘the night belongs to Charlie’ (the Viet Cong). In Iraq the night belongs to al-Sadr and others. 

American bourgeois politicians have the seemingly willful capacity to refuse to learn the lessons of history either from the European experiences or their own. We will forget the little things like Ronald Reagan’s invasion of Grenada, covert support to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan and the not so covert aid in the contras in Nicaragua. We will merely pass by Bush Senior’s little Iraq escapade. And this writer would not dream of impinging on the liberal Clinton (Bill) air war against Serbia over Kosovo. Hell, no body could learn lessons from those experiences and no bourgeois politician needed to because these were essentially walk overs. So it really is back to Vietnam if you want to see the full panoply of imperialist hubris in action. And that is the point. The assumption is that the time tables are determined to suit American conveniences and predilections. Al-Maliki’s situation is a case in point. He has run as inept and corrupt crony serving operation as Diem did in Vietnam. That he is a lapdog of American imperialism is a given. However, he has to respond as every politician must to his base. And that base is nationalistic and patriotic, as well as sectarian, and by its own lights will do what it can to seem independent from the Americans. The point is that to ‘cut and run’ now is the beginning of wisdom in order to cut losses. That is just sensible. But since we know after five long years of war that this administration is NOT sensible we had better keep fighting to build those anti-war soldier and sailor solidarity committees and get those troop transports revved up- Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal from Iraq, come hell or high water.