Bush must be back snorting coke

CNN was right on the money about Bush comaparing withdrawing from Iraq to withdrawing from Vietnam:

"Whatever your position in that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens, whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps' and 'killing fields,' " the president said.

Unfortunately, this speech is not getting a lot of coverage. It's not even linked on the CNN front page right now. The comparison will backfire because the biggest commonality between Iraq and Vietnam is they are both un-winnable quagmires.

Bush forgot the millions of Vietnamese who died during the war. More would have died if the war continued. Claiming the Cambodian "Killing Fields" were a result of the US withdrawal from Vietnam is utterly false. It was the communist Vietnamses government who overthrew the Khmer Rouge:

By December 1978, because of several years of border conflict and the flood of refugees fleeing Cambodia, relations between Cambodia and Vietnam deteriorated. Pol Pot, fearing a Vietnamese attack, ordered a pre-emptive invasion of Vietnam. His Cambodian forces crossed the border and looted nearby villages. Despite American and Chinese aid, these Cambodian forces were repulsed by the Vietnamese. The Vietnamese forces then invaded Cambodia, capturing Phnom Penh on January 7, 1979. Despite a traditional Cambodian fear of Vietnamese domination, defecting Khmer Rouge activists assisted the Vietnamese, and, with Vietnam's approval, became the core of the new puppet government.

If the Congressional Democrats were such a bunch of spineless wimps, I'd be hopeful that Bush's politically stupid comparison would help hasten the end of the war.

Is Bush back snorting coke?

CNN says Bush will claim we should not withdraw from Iraq because it's withdrawing would be like withdrawing from Vietnam.

The president will also make the argument that withdrawing from Vietnam emboldened today's terrorists by compromising U.S. credibility, citing a quote from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden that the American people would rise against the Iraq war the same way they rose against the war in Vietnam, according to the excerpts.

"Here at home, some can argue our withdrawal from Vietnam carried no price to American credibility, but the terrorists see things differently," Bush will say.

I predict this argument will bomb with the American public. Comparing Iraq to Vietnam is a stupid political move. The reason we should leave Iraq is that it is an un-winnable quagmire like Vietnam. I can only hope that the media gives this speech lots of coverage.

There's also the irony that neither Bush nor Cheney fought in the Vietnam. Apparently, they think other Americans should have kept dying in the rice fields half away around world just as long as it wasn't them.