Tom Hartmann Show the place for informed, reasonable debate on war

Today, I listened to a podcast of Thom Hartmann's show from yesterday, and during it, a Vietnam Veteran called in, and what he said struck me in a very profound way. He said that many Vietnam Veterans are alive today because Congress pulled the plug on that war. He also mentioned another thing I hadn't thought about - that generals are in the business of getting promoted (Read: Getting another star). When that happens, they are replaced with another general, who comes in and has to clean up the mess (or continue on with a war strategy that isn't working).

Pretty well stated, from a man who lived through the disaster of Vietnam.

When I heard the vet call in, it also reminded me of the new Nixon book that I blogged about last night: Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power, by Robert Dallek. The book was recently profiled and excerpted in Vanity Fair, and in that excerpt is the following passage from the book:

Using language that has a painfully contemporary echo, Kissinger and Nixon very quickly came to private conclusions about Vietnam that they never revealed publicly and denied entertaining. "In Saigon the tendency is to fight the war to victory," Nixon told Kissinger, according to the transcript of a 1969 phone conversation. "But you and I know it won't happen - it is impossible." Even so, according to [White House Chief of Staff Bob] Haldeman's unpublished diaries, Nixon later urged that Democratic critics making this same point should be labeled "the party of surrender." When someone told Kissinger that Nixon could not be re-elected, because of Vietnam, he disputed it and added, according to a memo of a conversation, that "anytime we want to get out of Vietnam we can," and that "we will get out of Vietnam before the [1972] election." Nixon wanted to plan the removal of all U.S. troops by the end of 1971, but Kissinger cautioned that, if North Vietnam then de-stabilized Saigon during the following year, events could have an adverse effect on the president's campaign. According to Haldeman's diaries, Kissinger advocated a pullout in the fall of 1972, "so that if any bad results follow they will be too late to affect the election." He apparently had nothing to say about the American lives that would be lost by deliberately prolonging the war. Just before a peace treaty was signed, Kissinger in a phone conversation advised Nixon against stating that this was a "lasting peace or guaranteed peace because this thing is almost certain to blow up sooner or later."

[Emphasis Mine]

When I heard the Vietnam Vet on Hartmann's show today, all I could think about are that the parallels between Vietnam and the War in Iraq grow more and more apropos by the day.

So, to quickly put the Vietnam War in perspective - 20,604 Americans gave their lives AFTER Nixon took office in January 1969 in a war that, according to Dallek, Kissinger said, "anytime we want to get out of Vietnam we can"? Just another revelation from a war that continues to be a national disgrace. When I read items like that, it's absolutely no stretch to say that President Nixon and Henry Kissinger are war criminals.

Put another way, it is not out of the question for Bush to pursue a similar strategy? Who among us, other than the blowhards at Fox News and the radical religious right, would be surprised if our troops were withdrawn from Iraq in July or August of next year, amidst a backdrop of Repubes claiming victory?

Whenever we bring all of our troops home out of Iraq, one thing is for certain - Democrats won't get an ounce of credit, at least among Republicans and most of the mainstream media.

Another caller on Hartmann's show, an MP from Arizona who served in Iraq, called in, and was livid at what this administration is doing to our military, and our soldiers. He briefly discussed the very active campaign to recall John McCain in Arizona. Whether the drive will ultimately be successful is anyone's guess, but it is a signal that his support is collapsing in his home state. This caller also discussed President Nixon's idea to use tactical nuclear weapons in Vietnam to achieve victory. I've read about this before, and I don't know the veracity of those stories, but considering everything else Nixon did, it wouldn't really come as a shock. According to this caller, Nixon looked out onto the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and saw one million protesters sharply opposed to his war policies, and he changed his mind. His point in bringing up that story (true or not) is the power of the protest, and he makes an excellent point - our voices can and must make the difference in this war.

It's become a running theme with just about every election - that it's the "most important election in our lifetime." It does become trite, but I shudder to think what would have happened had the Democrats not regained control of Congress some 20 weeks ago.

One thing's for certain - there would be very few, if any, substantive discussions about bringing our troops home, and the Democrats would have been a marginalized minority, just like they were during the first six years of this administration.