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12 January 2007
Fear and ignorance win out again!
I just got done watching President Bush give his televised
address, telling the world that he approves of sending 20,000 plus more
troops to Iraq. As I began watching, a thought occurred to me: does anybody
ever take seriously a recounting of events given by a president? If not,
it's hard to believe there ever was a time when American citizens had.
Regarding President Bush's decision to send more troops, I agree with
the Syrian vice president who said that such a move would throw more "oil
onto the fire."
I won't bother to comment on this issue, as I have nothing
unique to add to the discussion. I will, however, offer a passage from
Kenneth C. Davis's Don't Know Much About History (if it were not
for the 1990 copyright, I would have thought that Davis had Bush II in
mind when he wrote it) that, though not a point-by-point parallel with
what's going on in Iraq, offers a large, insightful perspective that some
might find informative.
Does this sound familiar? The world's most powerful nation
is caught up in a war against a small guerilla army. This superpower
must resupply its troops from thousands of miles away, a costly endeavor,
and support for the war at home is tentative, dividing the nation's
people and leadership. . . .
The United States in Vietnam? It could be. But it is
also the story of the British loss of the American colonies. There are
numerous parallels between the two conflicts. For the United States,
substitute England under George III, the dominant world power of the
day, but caught up in a draining colonial conflict that stretches its
resources. For the Vietcong, substitute the colonial army under Washington,
a ragtag collection if ever there was one, who used such unheard-of
tactics as disguising themselves in British uniforms and attacking from
the rear. British generals, accustomed to precisely drawn battle formations,
were completely taken aback, just as American commanders schooled in
tank warfare in World War II were unprepared for the jungles of Vietnam.
. . .
The British had to weigh the costs of maintaining their
dominance against its returns. They would have seen, as America did
in Vietnam, and as the Soviets did more recently in Afghanistan, that
the costs of such wars of colonial domination are usually more than
a nation is willing or able to bear.
It's a pity that America's military and political leaders
never learned a lesson from our own past, a fact that speaks volumes
about the arrogance of power (77-78).
It's also a shame that we American citizens did not learn
lessons from the past and allowed ourselves to get into this kind of mess
again.
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Copyright
© 2002-2012 by Charles Ian Chun
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