Bush and Nixon, Iraq and Vietnam

Dear editor:

For quite some time President Bush took a stand that there was no comparison between the Vietnam War and his Iraq War. Lately, though, he has taken the opposite tack and is comparing the two and speaking about the dangers of abandoning our commitment to “success” (what ever that means on a constantly sliding scale.) We hear how anyone who is in favor of pulling our troops out is a “cut and run” liberal and giving aid and comfort to the enemy. So much of this is so familiar that it forces one to look back to recent history and the stand that Mr. Nixon took on the same subject. It is amazing what the White House tapes have revealed about the words of the only president who resigned his position in disgrace.

Those tapes show that Nixon in his reelection bid for the White House demanded that everyone at the White House slam Democratic critics as “the party of surrender,” which wanted “a Communist South Vietnam. We should drop the subtleties and fight. It is vital to sustain a massive counterattack on the partisan critics of our proposal.” They should be described as “consciously giving aid and comfort to the enemy…They want the United States to surrender.” He wanted everyone to say that “the Democrats are unpatriotic;” they should be described as putting political gain ahead of national security.

Obviously the Bush, Cheney and many of the Republican candidates for the presidency have been mining Nixon’s old speeches for slandering anyone who disagrees with them. Nothing in the rhetoric has changed. Only the names have been changed to protect the guilty.