The Omega Letter Intelligence Digest

Vol: 31 Issue: 27 - Tuesday, April 27, 2004

Happiness is Vietnam in My Rear-View Mirror
by Jack Kinsella

"Senator Ted Kennedy said Iraq is, 'George Bush's Vietnam.' Given the fact
that, that U.S. forces are committed there for the long haul, what steps
do we need to take, Ambassador Bremer, to make sure that Iraq does not
turn into another Vietnam?"  - NBC's Matt Lauer to Ambassador Paul Bremer,
the chief U.S. administrator in Iraq, on Today, April 6.

"You say commit more troops. But that's the same thing LBJ did in Vietnam.
Do you worry that this is another Vietnam?" - Katie Couric to Hillary
Clinton on Dateline, April 16.

Retired Major General William Nash: "It's an insurgency against a public
security mission that the soldiers are trying to perform for the people of
Iraq. And so they are not able to engage regular military forces using the
strengths that we have to attack their weaknesses."

Peter Jennings: "Well, that sounds like Vietnam." - ABC's World News
Tonight, April 7.

"In Najaf, the militant Shiite cleric Al-Sadr echoed the refrain Iraq
could become quote, 'another Vietnam' for America." - Dan Rather on the
April 7 CBS Evening News.

"We are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man
to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last
man to die for a mistake?....We are here in Washington to say that the
problem of this war is not just a question of war and diplomacy. It is
part and parcel of everything that we are trying as human beings to
communicate to people in this country - the question of racism which is
rampant in the military, and so many other questions such as the use of
weapons; the hypocrisy in our taking umbrage at the Geneva Conventions and
using that as justification for a continuation of this war when we are
more guilty than any other body of violations of those Geneva Conventions;
in the use of free fire zones, harassment interdiction fire, search and
destroy missions, the bombings, the torture of prisoners, all accepted
policy by many units in South Vietnam."  -- Vietnam Veterans Against the
War Statement by John Kerry to the Senate Committee of Foreign Relations,
April 23, 1971

"I did obviously fight in Vietnam, and I was wounded there, and I served
there and was very proud of my service . . .To have these people, all of
whom made a different choice, attack me for it is obviously
disturbing." -- John F. Kerry, Presidential Candidate, Fulton College, Mo,
April 26, 2004
 

Assessment:

The War in Vietnam began during the Kennedy administration, escalated
during the Johnson and first Nixon administrations, and ended when the
Democrats in Congress voted to pull out and leave South Vietnam to the
tender mercies of the communist North.

The Tet Offensive that so many credit as the reason for America's defeat
in Vietnam was a disastrous military defeat for the North and a massive
military victory for the United States.

But at home, there were people like John Kerry telling the American public
that Vietnam was a 'peaceful agrarian society' that had been invaded by
the US 'military-industrial complex'  so that 'fat-cats' could 'get rich'
etc., etc.

Groups like Vietnam Veterans Against the War turned on their country and
their fellow veterans, and worked actively to secure an ignominious
American withdrawal from Vietnam, betraying the South Vietnamese whose
generation-long war of liberation ended in defeat and absorption by the
Communists.

One legacy of John Kerry, Jane Fonda and other anti-war activists
protesting America's 'unjust war' in South Vietnam is the current practice
throughout 'reunited' Vietnam of martyring Christians for their faith.

"In Vietnam, police reportedly killed hundreds of Christians at a peaceful
prayer protest over Easter weekend. More than a thousand Christian
Montagnards had been protesting religious repression and confiscation of
their tribal lands.Vietnam's communist government has been persecuting the
Montagnards for years. One reason is because massive numbers of
Montagnards have converted to Christianity since the early 1990s. A
Montagnard Christian who escaped to the U.S. says his people are 'crying
out for freedom.' " -- Christian World News, April 16, 2004.

THIS is what those 56,000-plus Americans who died in Vietnam died to
protect. Freedom. Not some 'military-industrial complex of fat cats.'  And
NOT so some political hopeful could denigrate those sacrifices to advance
his own political career, as Kerry did in '71.  Or cynically exploit it to
get elected president in 2004.

This week, answering charges that he lied about throwing his medals over
the White House fence,  John Kerry stood tall, faced the cameras, and said
something to the effect that because he served in Vietnam and neither Bush
nor Cheney did, it was thirty years ago, and anyway,  Kerry went to
Vietnam and neither Bush nor Cheney did . . . or something.

The media is making an issue out of whether Kerry threw his ribbons over
the fence, or whether he threw his medals.  Kerry responded by saying he
threw the ribbons, but kept the medals, saying that 'ribbons' and 'medals'
were, to all intents and purposes, interchangeable terms.

I agree with Kerry.  'Ribbons' represent medals, and are, among military
types, interchangeable.

When a medal is awarded, it comes with a ribbon that is worn on the
Uniform of the Day instead, to show you earned the medal which remains in
your presentation case.

So it doesn't make any difference whether he threw away 'ribbons' or
'medals'.  The point is that he threw them away THEN, and is campaigning
on them NOW.  John Kerry testified under oath that Americans routinely
tortured and pillaged and raped and burned and committed war crimes as
'accepted policy by many units in South Vietnam' in 1971.

He renounced the medals he earned by throwing the ribbons that
representated them over the White House fence.  Those medals weren't
his -- they were given to him in trust.  For every decorated veteran there
is a dead veteran who didn't survive to be decorated.  Those medals are
shared by the living and the dead.

When Kerry threw his ribbons over the White House fence, he broke that
trust and renounced his right to claim them again.  It is important to
remember WHY Kerry said he was 'giving his medals back' as he put it.

It was because -- in his own words -- he earned them by committing war
crimes simply by serving in Vietnam. Now he mentions them in every
campaign speech.
 

It wasn't George Bush or Dick Cheney that ressurrected Vietnam as a
campaign issue -- it was John Kerry.  According to Kerry, Bush/Cheney are
less qualified because they DIDN'T participate in conduct so reprehensible
that Kerry threw his decorations away in protest.

If the war in Iraq goes badly for George Bush, that means the election
will go favorably for John Kerry.  It is, therefore, in John Kerry's best
political interests that Iraq become 'another Vietnam'.

What does 'another Vietnam' mean?  Does it mean a military defeat on the
battlefield?  No.  We won on the battlefield.  We lost at home, thanks to
propaganda speeches by anti-war activists like John Kerry gave in 1971.
John Kerry was a veteran, so he was very convincing.

Aided by the mainstream media coverage of antiwar demonstrations and
high-profile coverage afforded folks like Jane Fonda and John Kerry,
pretty soon mainstream America was convinced we were bogged down in a
'quagmire' that we couldn't win.

Now is a good time to scroll back up and read what the mainstream media is
saying about Iraq. Jane Fonda is keeping a low profile, but Jeannine
Garafalo,  Al Franken, Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins are there
to pick up the slack. And so is the mainstream media.

Vietnam was thirty years ago.  The loss in Vietnam won Jimmy Carter the
White House in 1976.  John Kerry hopes he can use Vietnam again, by
recreating it in Iraq, to win the White House for him in 2004.

The propaganda message built into chants like, "No more Vietnams", is what
created the FIRST 'Vietnam' in Vietnam. John Kerry knows that. He helped
perfect the technique while launching his political career. That's why we
keep hearing it now.

But Iraq isn't Vietnam. Islam is not communism. The Viet Cong didn't have
access to weapons of mass destruction. After a John Kerry administration,
will there be a Ronald Reagan waiting in the wings to pick up the pieces?

And even if history repeats itself this time, will there be any pieces
left to pick up?