Massa opinion piece in the Corning Leader
Via the Fighting29th, here’s Eric Massa’s opinion piece from today’s Corning Leader. He blasts the Bush administration for using the Vietnam analogy to argue for a prolonged occupation of Iraq and blasts Kuhl for going along with it.
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What bothers me is that the GWB speech to the VFW was given for one reason and one reason only: as the first salvo in the battle over “who lost Iraq”. Karl Rove is positioning the repubs for a generation of claiming that Iraq was lost because of weak-kneed Democrats– “just like Vietnam”.
I’m concerned that Eric’s editorial is insufficiently sharp– its focus is diffused by his discussions of Bush and Kuhl’s lack of military service and current free trade agreements with Vietnam.
I suspect the only way to answer this speech and the others, yet to come, is to forcefully state something along the lines of: Vietnam was a difficult, complicated situation with no easy answers. Iraq was difficult but in many different ways. Iraq was an optional war, chosen by George Bush, fought by George Bush with his hand picked generals and with his strategy. That strategy was doomed to failure because it was inadequate and poorly thought out, and that most sensible people in this country have come to the realization that there is no reason to continue to allow American blood to be spilled.
Put this war, responsibility for it, and responsibility for “losing it” squarely where it belongs: with the George W. Bush administration. Until that message is made sufficiently that it becomes “common belief”, we are doing the nation a disservice by allowing anything else to muddy the water.