Quote:
Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Read the post above in which I quoted from a blog about the parallel with Vietnam. Evidently we are not learning from history. Certainly the right sees things the way that you do, but it's unclear to me that the terrorists do. At any rate, to your way of looking, we've trapped ourselves in a (flawed) struggle from which we cannot turn back. (One wonders why we're about to turn over control of Iraq, given this, but I digress.) This is what led us farther and farther into Vietnam.
If this was our course, how wise was it for Bush to lead us here, given how much the public in countries like Spain opposed the war? Something like this was entirely predictable, bombing or no. If you're right, wasn't he setting us up for failure?
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The situation at hand more closely resembles the lead up to WWII rather than Vietnam. I know you are pretty damn literate in that history - do you not see the similarities between the appeasement of Hitler and the appeasement of AQ? In both cases, much of Europe believed that if they just turned a blind eye to the agression, the aggressor's appetite would be satisfied and they would be safe. Clearly in WWII they were wrong and I do not see how the intervening 70 years changes this analysis.
I'm not sure where you think Bush has gone wrong. The view on the left is that if Bush would have been "better" at coalition building, our allies would be with us. This is just a faulty belief. Those that were against the war in Iraq would not have been pursuaded no matter who was president or what tacts were taken. So the real decision Bush was left with is (a) do I do what I believe is necessary in order to protect America, even at the costs of alienating certain of our allies or (b) does preserving our relationships with our allies take precedent in all cases, even if I believe they may be wrong? Thankfully, he chose the first option.
