The American Spectator

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(Page 4 of 12)

br> Re: William Tucker's The Real Lesson of Vietnam : /p>

America has exactly the same problem in Iraq as it did in Vietnam -- it can't define what exactly winning means and how the public will recognize it. Until this happens, forget about getting the support of the home front and the Rosie the Riveters who helped win World War 2. In that war, victory was unmistakable -- the Russians had stormed Berlin and planted their flag on the Brandenburg Gate, Hitler was a pile of ashes, every Japanese city had been burnt to the ground and the Japanese had surrendered on the decks of the USS Missouri. Victory was unmistakable even to those who lost. There was no equivalent in Vietnam and no one has even tried to say what winning in Iraq looks like. It is the worst display of utterly incompetent war leadership imaginable.

p>The American people, faced with a war in Iraq that they don't understand and that has never been explained to them, are simply doing what most people do when dealing with untrustworthy politicians and unproven products -- they want to see the money first. It is a criminal failure of leadership of the worst sort that the Bush administration and the congress expect them to do otherwise. Do they really think that their own people are that stupid? It sure looks like it. Until the President and the congress begin to show even the faintest understanding of what war fighting and war leadership requires then everyone except the Islamists and the terrorists can forget about winning in Iraq. They will win simply because we aren't bothering to even try, we can't even say what the hell we are doing over there. br> -- Christopher Holland br> Canberra, Australia /p>

William Tucker was somewhat careless with his facts in "The Real Lesson of Vietnam," published October 4.

Some of the problems are minor details, as when Tucker writes that General Creighton Adams was appointed by President Richard Nixon to command the U.S. forces in Vietnam. The general's name was Abrams, and he was appointed by President Lyndon Johnson well before the election that made Nixon president.

p>Others are more important, as when Tucker writes, "By 1971, an entire American division was living in villages in the Mekong Delta." This is so untrue that I cannot even figure out what might have led Tucker br> to this error. /p>

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