Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Bush Fails To Learn The Lessons Of History

In a speech today, President Bush demonstrated his utter lack of comprehension of the past.

According to Bush:

President George W. Bush argued Wednesday that leaving Iraq now would provoke the kind of horrendous bloodbath that followed U.S. withdrawals from Vietnam and Cambodia.

"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," Mr. Bush said.


Bush must have failed History 101 somewhere along the way. The lesson of Vietnam is not in what happened when the United States withdrew. The lesson of the Vietnamese conflict has more to do with the ability of determined shadow organizations to make it near impossible for foreign occupiers to control a country - even when overwhelming military force is brought to bear.

"We are still in the early hours of the current ideological struggle, but we know how the others ended, and that knowledge helps guide our efforts today," the president said.


Again, the president is badly misconstruing history quite badly. He's referring to the "victories" in the 20th century that America takes credit for in its efforts to squash the "communist threat". Unfortunately, Bush isn't taking on an ideology - he's taking on a combination of a culture and a religion. A far more relevant example historically are the Crusades. (Which were far from a swimming success)

Perhaps one day, when he's older, Bush Jr. just might realize that the world is better off if you let people live in peace, rather than ramming your agenda down their throats.

No comments:

Collective Punishment

Ever since Pierre Poilievre opened his mouth and declared that Trans Women need to be banned from washrooms and locker rooms , there's b...