...if for no other reason than Henry Fucking Kissinger is once again disastrously advising another president. From 60 Minutes (italics mine):
In [Mike] Wallace's interview with Woodward, to be broadcast on 60 Minutes this Sunday, Oct. 1, at 7 p.m. ET/PT, the reporter also claims that Henry Kissenger is among those advising Mr. Bush.According to Woodward, insurgent attacks against coalition troops occur, on average, every 15 minutes, a shocking fact the administration has kept secret. "It's getting to the point now where there are eight-, nine-hundred attacks a week. That's more than 100 a day. That is four an hour attacking our forces," says Woodward.
The situation is getting much worse, says Woodward, despite what the White House and the Pentagon are saying in public. "The truth is that the assessment by intelligence experts is that next year, 2007, is going to get worse and, in public, you have the president and you have the Pentagon [saying], 'Oh, no, things are going to get better,'" he tells Wallace. "Now there's public, and then there's private. But what did they do with the private? They stamp it secret. No one is supposed to know," says Woodward.
"The insurgents know what they are doing. They know the level of violence and how effective they are. Who doesn't know? The American public," Woodward tells Wallace.
Woodward also reports that the president and vice president often meet with Henry Kissinger, who was President Richard Nixon's secretary of state, as an adviser. Says Woodward, "Now what's Kissinger's advice? In Iraq, he declared very simply, 'Victory is the only meaningful exit strategy.'" Woodward adds. "This is so fascinating. Kissinger's fighting the Vietnam War again because, in his view, the problem in Vietnam was we lost our will."
Intelligent Designer save us from the Peter Pan conservatives. Do they really think the problem in Iraq is "will"? Not inadequate manpower, occupation planning, strategy, or logistics? So much for the 'grownup' administration...
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The problem with vietnam was that we were trying to 'liberate' people who had been stomped on by outside powers for several thousand years and were, perhaps understandably, fed up about it. The communist thing was secondary to the nationalist thing.
Of course, it may have been possible to win in Vietnam if it had been politically possible to invade the North. Political unification was the only thing that would ever end it.
Iraq is slightly different as it doesn't have the same sense of national coherance as Vietnam, so you've got the added complication of a developing civil war. On the other hand, there are no 'base areas' for the insurgents like Vietnam had North Vietnam and Laos, so if you put in the same troop numbers as vietnam (600,000 or so) you could have a chance of pacifying the place.
Too bad Barbara Tuchman isn't around. I think we will be able to add a new chapter to "The March of Folly" and not even have to wait 20 years to do it.