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From: Taos
Daily & Horse Fly America has become an occupying power in Iraq using the
same methods and thinking as when we got bogged down in Vietnam. The 2002
Congressional authorization for the U.S. attack on Iraq has much in common
with the action taken by Congress in 1964, when it passed the Tonkin Gulf
Resolution that gave President Johnson a blank check leading to the
Americanization of the war in Vietnam. Both Presidents Bush and Johnson misled the public and
Congress to get resolutions passed that authorized them to wage undeclared
wars. Johnson claimed an unprovoked attack on an American destroyer, the
Maddox. Bush linked Saddam Hussein with the 9/11 attack and claimed
Hussein posed a direct threat to our security. From the grunt’s point of view, the U.S. is repeating its
history of presidents getting us involved in undeclared and protracted
wars. If we are to learn any lessons from our past wars, the Tonkin Gulf
Resolution is a good place to start. Johnson withheld information from Congress about the Tonkin
Gulf incident to get a free hand. The resolution authorized the president
to use force to assist South Vietnam. President Johnson got his resolution
by not fully informing Congress and by misrepresenting the facts. Let’s
start with the facts. On Aug. 2, 1964, the U.S. destroyer Maddox was attacked by
North Vietnamese torpedo boats, resulting in little damage to the
destroyer. The following night radar picked up what was believed at the
time to be another attack by Vietnamese boats. Later that night, the
captain of the Maddox radioed that he believed there might not have been
any attack. The president presented the attacks as unprovoked and as
having occurred in international waters. Not disclosed was that the Maddox
had been eight miles from shore earlier in the night and that the North
Vietnamese claimed a twelve-mile territorial water boundary. Most
importantly, the U.S. had been running secret ground raids into the north
and bombing North Vietnamese targets. The Maddox had been gathering
intelligence and may have been involved in these raids, as the North
Vietnamese believed. The attack on the Maddox was not unprovoked, but a
response to acts of war committed by the United States. These facts were
not disclosed to Congress or the public when seeking the resolution.
Today, we are in Iraq because of a resolution passed by
Congress based on misleading information supplied by the Bush
administration. After 9/11, the administration decided to invade Iraq
without disclosing to the public some of its true motives—oil and
geopolitical control of the region. It knew that to ensure the support of
the public and Congress for a war, it needed intelligence that linked
Hussein to a direct threat against America. A committee called the Office
of Special Plans did a good job of cooking intelligence so the
administration could justify war. They claimed that Hussein had weapons of
mass destruction that he could and would use against the U.S., that he
would give his WMDs to other terrorists, and that he had direct links to
Al Qaeda and to the attack on 9/11. Furthermore, the Bush administration
used manufactured evidence to show that Iraq was buying uranium from Niger
for its nuclear weapons program. President Bush used the same deceptive methods as Johnson
in getting Congress to approve the invasion and occupation of Iraq. No
stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction have been found. Terrorism is a
bigger problem in Iraq now than before the war. Almost all of the reasons
used to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq have proven to be
wrong. The only truth to come from the administration is that Hussein was
a very bad dictator (whom President Reagan and the first Bush had
supported for many years when it suited them). No mention has been made of
the oil, except that it would pay for reconstruction of Iraq (which has
turned out to not be the case; the U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill).
Congress abdicated its responsibilities by going along with
President Bush just as it did in the case of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution.
In the case of Iraq, members of the intelligence committees in both houses
had information disproving much of the administration’s claims but failed
to speak out. Our problem now is the same one we had in Vietnam: to
create a legitimate government from scratch. In the end it all comes down
to people dying and our soldiers bleeding while trying to bring stability
in an impossible situation. Monte Doeren served two tours in Vietnam, from
1966-1968, first as a machine-gunner in the infantry and then as a door
gunner on Huey gunships and slicks. He was awarded the Purple Heart and
Silver Star. He has been a student of military history for 30 years. He
resides in Questa. |