Ted Kennedy - "Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam"

It's nice that our Australian friends are standing with us:

Howard dismisses Iraq-Vietnam link

ANY comparison between the Iraq conflict and Vietnam is politically motivated and historically wrong, Prime Minister John Howard said today.

Senior Liberal Party figures, including former prime minister Malcolm Fraser and former party president John Valder, have likened the Iraq conflict to the Vietnam war.

Labor leader Mark Latham has also made the comparison but Mr Howard today dismissed the suggestions.

"Those comparisons are politically inspired, historically inaccurate and designed not to help but to hinder," he told reporters in Sydney.

Times were tough in Iraq but the Iraqi people would not want Australia to pull out, he said.

"They need our support and our solidarity, not our notice to quit at a time like this.

"It would be a retreat from what Australia believes in, and stands for, for it to bail out at a time of difficulty and trial."

Mr Howard said the psychological effect of Australia even speculating publicly about a troop withdrawal was damaging.

The nation was committed to ensuring that every element of its deployment completed tasks given to it, he said.

But it was impossible to put a time frame on when the job would be done.

AAP

Daily Telegraph

i don't know about the jane fonda comparison, seems silly, but kennedy should watch his choice of words.

don't get the idea that Australia is standing with you. Nobody but that slimey little slug Howard and his cronies hold that view. He'll be gone in November and Mark Latham will be the new PM.

It was conservatives that sent this nation to Vietnam, and the same party that sent us to Iraq. The opposition will bring the troops home this time, the same as they did 30 years ago.

Just been watching the news. Howard's now fighting his own colleagues, with the defense minister at the time of the Vietnam war siding with the opposition leader in calling it Howard's Vietnam, and members of his own party agreeing. He's dismissing and attacking anyone who disagrees with him in predictable conservative arrogance.

We understand that you don't understand. We also think you should vary your reading.

We likes our current sources just fine, yessss...

'Pit bull' Kennedy goes step too far

By Boston Herald editorial staff

Thursday, April 8, 2004

On Monday Sen. Ted Kennedy, designated pit bull for the Kerry campaign, said, "Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam, and this country needs a new president.''

By Wednesday the theme had been picked up by none other than radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who issued a statement saying, "I call upon the American people to stand beside their brethren, the Iraqi people, who are suffering an injustice by your rulers and the occupying army, to help them in the transfer of power to honest Iraqis. Otherwise, Iraq will be another Vietnam for America and the occupiers.''

Of course, al-Sadr is wanted for murder and his militia continue to attack U.S. troops. But heck, he and the senior senator from Massachusetts have found common ground. Isn't that special!

Since Sunday, nearly three dozen Americans and other coalition soldiers have lost their lives. But what are young Americans returning home in body bags to Ted Kennedy, when there are political points to be scored.

Imagine the pain that the families of those latest casualties - like the family of Providence native Matthew Serio, a 21-year-old Marine killed in a firefight in Fallujah Monday - are already coping with. And then imagine the pain of knowing that at the moment their son was fighting and dying for his country, Ted Kennedy was in Washington calling Iraq a "misguidedwar'' that has "made America more hated in the world and made the war on terrorism harder to win.''

In a more civil era, it was considered political suicide to say the kind of things Ted Kennedy said this week while young Americans were dying on foreign soil. But no such sense of propriety or sympathy for the families of the fallen enters into Kennedy's thinking - not when there are political points to be scored against George W. Bush.

"A year after the war began, Americans are questioning why the administration went to war in Iraq, when Iraq was not an imminent threat,'' Kennedy said, conveniently forgetting that it is not an administration that goes to war, it is a nation - this nation in a move authorized by the Congress. Today some 135,000 U.S. military men and women are still on the ground in Iraq.

Yet in his unrelenting effort to put John Kerry [related, bio] in the White House, Kennedy belittles the efforts of those troops, while giving aid, comfort and his best lines to the likes of a murdering thug like al-Sadr.

With people like Kennedy in his corner, Kerry won't need enemies.

BostonHerald.com

The Newsmax piece is too silly for words, and perfectly predictable.

McCain has argued (well, not argued, but he's said) that Iraq isn't comparable to Vietnam. That seems right in a number of ways, as in how many americans have or are likely to be killed.

Militarily and strategically, the comparable case seems clearly to be Palestine/Israel, which is not encouraging.

But the Vietnam comparison is correct in a couple of ways. First, arrogance. We are big and have shiny weapons and we are godly, while they are small and backward and evil. Second, it looks increasingly like Iraq will bring down an administration.

Actually your second comparison is right on. We did bring down an administration, and its president is in jail now. And the American and Iraqi people overwhelmingly approve.

Terrorist
"he makes it sound like our President is worse than any terrorist."

Yes, I agree. W is a worse than any terrorist and has been reposponsible for more deaths, as well.

Re: Terrorist


here, here!

Re: Terrorist


Nah...that's a bad comparison. Bush is undereducated, incurious, incompetent, an idealogue, and deeply dangerous because of all those things. But he is not as 'bad' as any terrorist.

The wars in Vietnam and Iraq were both entered under false pretenses.

The war in Iraq may be worse than Vietnam. This is only the beginning of what may be a decades-long occupation of Iraq.

The U.S. could have left Vlietnam at any time without consequences to the U.S. Leaving Iraq now would mean a civil war and possible instability for the whole Middle East. That could seriously affect world-wide oil-based economies.

Bush got us into a big pile of dung in Iraq, and it will take somebody else to get us out.

Kennedy is a dumb **** so I wasn't surprised when he said that. I would vote for Bush's testicle before I would vote for Kennedy.

Evidence
The above is proof of how completely stupid Right Wingers are.

Re: Evidence

you reek of liberalism, which is a pity.

Pist and BW, separated at birth?

I didn't deserve that insult.