Bush Compares Iraq To Vietnam

So now President Bush is comparing Iraq to Vietnam, and says it's the reason why we should continue the insanity of occupying a nation we never should have invaded. "Whatever your position is on (the Vietnam) debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent victims whose agony would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' re-education camps' and killing fields,' " he said.

Well, Mr. Bush seems to be guilty of a bit of revisionist history. Most historians believe the U.S. military killed between two and three million civilians during the Vietnam conflict, far more than died in the post-withdrawal meltdown. Moreover, by the time one year had passed after the fall of Saigon, the killing in Vietnam had largely ceased, and the country had largely returned to some kind of normalcy.

Today Vietnam is a stable, unified country, albeit a communist one. No more "dominoes" fell, and Vietnam is both a trading partner of the U.S. and a vacation destination of our citizens. Things seem to have turned out O.K. Indeed, I think most Vietnamese citizens would agree the best thing that ever happened to their country was us getting out.

No, Mr. Bush, the parallel with Iraq and Vietnam is this: we were lured into both illegal wars by deception and outright lying at the highest levels of our government. Both conflicts quickly devolved into quagmires of civil war that our very presence only made worse.

And the lesson of Vietnam, Mr. President, is this: get out. Get out now. Don't waste the life of one more American or one more innocent Iraqi civilian. Don't burn through any more of our treasury on a doomed and unnecessary occupation. Don't continue to serve as a recruiting poster for terrorist membership drives. Just leave.