A Lesson Unlearned
President Bush's "lessons of Vietnam" statement is making the rounds in the Intertubes. Given the outcome of that long ago conflict, I would find the sentiment audacious coming from anyone but particularly so from this President. For here we have a man who used his father's influence to avoid serving in that war from which we are suppose to have derived a 'lesson' for the current one.
This President never saw combat. Never knew what it was like to be in the middle of a firefight. Never knew what is was like to lose a friend to the chaos of war. Never suffered the horrors of the Hanoi Hilton, endured by men like John McCain and countless others (and which may explain why he has no aversion to such tactics being employed on our enemies).
Of course Bush has waged his own personal Vietnam in Iraq. And just as with the former conflict, he is once again turning to his father's buddies to help him escape the later. But how correctable the current mistake is remains very much in doubt.
Perhaps that is the ultimate lesson to be learned from war: That we should not let the failure of some men to heed history's warning be a failure that reflects on us all.
More from John Cole, Capt. Fogg, Larry Johnson and Suzanne Goldenberg.
Update: Still more from W. Patrick Lang and Paul Abrams.
(Filed at State of the Day)
This President never saw combat. Never knew what it was like to be in the middle of a firefight. Never knew what is was like to lose a friend to the chaos of war. Never suffered the horrors of the Hanoi Hilton, endured by men like John McCain and countless others (and which may explain why he has no aversion to such tactics being employed on our enemies).
Of course Bush has waged his own personal Vietnam in Iraq. And just as with the former conflict, he is once again turning to his father's buddies to help him escape the later. But how correctable the current mistake is remains very much in doubt.
Perhaps that is the ultimate lesson to be learned from war: That we should not let the failure of some men to heed history's warning be a failure that reflects on us all.
More from John Cole, Capt. Fogg, Larry Johnson and Suzanne Goldenberg.
Update: Still more from W. Patrick Lang and Paul Abrams.
(Filed at State of the Day)
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