MemeStreams | MemeStreams Discussion

Create an Account

This page contains all of the posts and discussion on MemeStreams referencing the following web page: Of Politics and Vengeance, The legacy factor. You can find discussions on MemeStreams as you surf the web, even if you aren't a MemeStreams member, using the Threads Bookmarklet.

Of Politics and Vengeance, The legacy factor by Rattle at 6:28 am EDT, Oct 17, 2002
The president's father, after building up Hussein as an international ogre, called the U.S. military off when the Iraqi despot's days seemed numbered. This outcome fed voters' sense of a Bush failure. Since then, the Republican presidential victory in 2000 has not only restored a Bush to the White House but has also brought back the GOP war-management teams of 1974-75 (the end of fighting in Vietnam) and 1990-91 (the Gulf War). Their hunger for revenge must be almost palpable. This is dynastic-type policymaking never before seen in the United States. True, our sixth president, John Quincy Adams, became president like his father. But that was 24 years later, and his father, who belonged to a different party, left no unfinished war as a legacy. The return of defense secretaries and White House chiefs of staff from previous wartime periods is just as unprecedented. It suggests a rare combination of unrequited frustrations and motivations. Consider: In spring 1975, when the war in Vietnam ended with the fall of South Vietnam to the communists and Cambodians seized the U.S. merchant ship Mayaguez, Donald H. Rumsfeld, now Defense secretary, was the White House chief of staff and Dick Cheney, now vice president, was his deputy. Former President Bush recalled Southeast Asian embarrassments in 1991, when he pledged that the Gulf War "will not be another Vietnam." Cheney was around then, too, as secretary of Defense. When the U.S. appeared victorious, Bush exclaimed that, "We've kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all." Unfortunately, he was mistaken. For the war leaders of 1975 and 1991, two decades of being embarrassed by pipsqueak countries have lengthened to three. Arguably, this, not the chemical or biological weapons never used by Hussein in 1991, is what truly goads the Bush-Rumsfeld-Cheney threesome.
Link - Reply

Los Angeles Times: Of Politics and Vengeance
by Reknamorken at 4:38 pm EDT, Oct 17, 2002

The president's father, after building up Hussein as an international ogre, called the U.S. military off when the Iraqi despot's days seemed numbered. This outcome fed voters' sense of a Bush failure. Since then, the Republican presidential victory in 2000 has not only restored a Bush to the White House but has also brought back the GOP war-management teams of 1974-75 (the end of fighting in Vietnam) and 1990-91 (the Gulf War). Their hunger for revenge must be almost palpable.
This is dynastic-type policymaking never before seen in the United States. True, our sixth president, John Quincy Adams, became president like his father. But that was 24 years later, and his father, who belonged to a different party, left no unfinished war as a legacy.
The return of defense secretaries and White House chiefs of staff from previous wartime periods is just as unprecedented. It suggests a rare combination of unrequited frustrations and motivations. Consider: In spring 1975, when the war in Vietnam ended with the fall of South Vietnam to the communists and Cambodians seized the U.S. merchant ship Mayaguez, Donald H. Rumsfeld, now Defense secretary, was the White House chief of staff and Dick Cheney, now vice president, was his deputy.
Former President Bush recalled Southeast Asian embarrassments in 1991, when he pledged that the Gulf War "will not be another Vietnam." Cheney was around then, too, as secretary of Defense. When the U.S. appeared victorious, Bush exclaimed that, "We've kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all."

Unfortunately, he was mistaken. For the war leaders of 1975 and 1991, two decades of being embarrassed by pipsqueak countries have lengthened to three. Arguably, this, not the chemical or biological weapons never used by Hussein in 1991, is what truly goads the Bush-Rumsfeld-Cheney threesome.

Good article, but a bit off. What was really learned from Vietnam was that when we kick the shit out of little countries we need to do it quick, with minimum U.S. casualties, and with maximum force. The "Vietnam Syndrome" that was "kicked" has nothing to do with America's traditional imperialism and everything to do with it's management of perceptions internal to it's borders. As long as the war is sugar coated and it's only people on the other side dying (Who cares about them anyway??) then it's all good.