Digby on Woodward book, Vietnam, Iraq

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A long post, but a good one. The essential message is that Cheney and Rumsfeld really saw Iraq as a way to have a "do-over" of Vietnam. But since they were still blinded by the same kind of thinking (even consulting with Kissenger!), the result was just as dismal:
The extent of Rumsfeld's screw-ups is well known by now, but this book seems to be asserting something about the war that is quite startling at this late date --- the real reason they were so anxious to go into Iraq come hell or high water. Yes, we know it was about oil and it was about Israel and it was about PNAC wet dreams and seven thousand other things. But I'm talking about the Big Reason, the one that united all these people: Iraq is their long awaited chance to do Vietnam right.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Its quite obvious that the war in Iraq is in total kaos and we are certainly heading in the same path as we did in Vietnam. Recently have been seeing a lot of stuff about how the war is going in Iraq, by so called experts and outsiders, but I have just came across a student documentary that describes what it is like to be a soldier in Iraq and Vietnam from the perspective of two soldiers who deserted to Canada as conscientious objectors.
View Parallels Documentary
9:16 PM, October 05, 2006
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