I Don’t Care What The News Says, It’s Another Vietnam I Tell You — Another Vietnam!!!

04 Apr, 2003 by John Hawkins

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I Don’t Care What The News Says, It’s Another Vietnam I Tell You — Another Vietnam!!!: Our manic-depressive press started the war out incredibly optimistic, then they almost immediately fell into a deep despair, and now they’re three feet high and rising. I personally expect another wave of gloom out of the press if we meet the expected resistance in Baghdad, but at least one writer is getting a head start. That would be Andrew Greeley, who’s shouting “Big Muddy” from the rooftops of the Chicago. He uses that phrase five times in the Vietnam flashback that he calls his latest editorial. Here’s some what he had to say…

“During the Vietnam War, there was a morose song that claimed that Lyndon Johnson had mired the United States in the ”Big Muddy,” a dark swamp from which there was no escape. Because the U.S. military never seems to learn from its mistakes, it would appear that we are once again deep in the Big Muddy.

The strength of American military might exists in its technology, firepower and air power–none of which is much good against guerrilla warriors who are ready to die. The war in Vietnam was lost finally because our military leadership was never able to cope with the Viet Cong. Is there any reason to think that the leadership of today is better able to cope with the Fedayeen Saddam?

…Rumsfeld is telling the world that we will not engage in street war in Baghdad, but rather surround the city and lay siege to it until there’s an internal revolution–a cockeyed notion if there ever was one. In both cases, many Americans would die and thousands and thousands of Iraqis. The Brookings Institution has suggested that 5,000 Americans might die and 20,000 might be wounded. They estimate that Iraqi military casualties might exceed 100,000, and civilian casualties might be much higher.

…What happens when you want to liberate a country that does not want to be liberated? What happens when the ”only superpower” is humiliated by a handful of fanatics in flowing desert robes?

Even in details, the venture into the Big Muddy is like the last one. Reporters from the front lines describe serious problems. Central Command headquarters is optimistic in its daily briefings. The Pentagon blames journalists for exaggerating the problems. The president, who now apparently thinks he’s Abraham Lincoln (as did Lyndon Johnson), solemnly warns that we will stay the course in a war that will be long and difficult. One wonders why he didn’t warn about pro-Saddam Hussein guerrillas before the war. Or even if he knew about them.”

So he thinks the Iraqis don’t want to be liberated, that we can’t possibly deal with the Fedayeen, that we’re going to suffer “many casualties” — he mentions the 5000 killed and 20,000 wounded numbers from the Brookings institute, he thinks we’re going to be “humiliated by a handful of fanatics in flowing desert robes”, etc, etc. Later on in the column, he does at least he does admit that we’ll win the war “eventually”. Does “eventually” mean three years, five years, seven years? Vietnam lasted a long time you know.

Someone should have told Andrew that this is such a “last weekend” type of editorial. He should have saved this one for another week or two because the media will probably be screaming “QUAGMIRE” if our troops aren’t parading through the streets of Baghdad by then. Of course, Greeley still wouldn’t have been right about the “Big Muddy” if he had waited, but at least he would have had more company. As it is, Scott Ritter, Robert Fisk, & Greeley are now out in front of the media’s gloom & doom parade and are undoubtedly wondering where the marching bands, the cheering hippies, and the Ho Chi Min Float went.

As for me, I’m doing the same thing I’ve done since the beginning of the war. Not getting too high, not getting too low and watching the troops do what they do better than anyone else ever has. In the interim, I’m taking note of the Andrew Greeley’s in the media, because I think that a lot of them are going to be eating their words when this is all over.