The Ghost of Nixon still setting policy today

February 26, 2007 by mugsy.

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Is this an old story? Maybe not. The meme has been around since before Bush ascended to the Presidency in 2000, but I’ve yet to find a report anywhere that does more than just pick at the list of Nixon/Bush similarities like a child picking the carrots out of his peas. Maybe because a true point-by-point rundown of similarities would fill an encyclopedia. An illegal war, launched on a lie, perpetuated under false pretenses, during which Republicans spoke of “surges”, “fighting there to protect us here” and the accusation that “protesters hate the troops”. I was reminded of all this over the weekend as I watched the excellent 2006 documentary “The U.S. vs. John Lennon“. (If you are reading this blog, you want to see this movie.)

Ever since presidential candidate George W. Bush announced that his running mate would be a holdover from the Nixon/Ford Administration, have critics viewed Bush’s Presidency through the prism of Nixonian politics. And when he appointed several other holdovers from the Nixon White House… Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle… as advisers, the concern grew even more. Then President Bush appointed Nixon’s former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger… the architect of Nixon’s secret war in Cambodia… to investigate 9/11, even NeoCons could no longer deny the growing similarity between the two administrations.

But as time passed, the “Bush-II” presidency hasn’t become just “similar” to Nixon’s, it’s nearly an outright clone (and you thought Bush outlawed human cloning). The paranoia, a criminal scandal involving the CIA (Watergate/Plame), spying on American citizens, lying to the American people, illegally expanding their unwinnable war into neighboring territory, total disregard for the Constitution and assertion of powers that they don’t really have… the list goes on.

Now, the new Democratic Congress is working to revoke and redefine the ill-fated “War Authorization” they themselves gave President Bush in the scant 18 months they controlled Congress… an ENORMOUS mistake (the authorization, not their gaining control). Foolishly, they actually trusted President Bush to use the power they were giving him wisely and not abuse his authority to take the country on an idealistic Neo-Conservative binge.

Head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) was on “Meet the Press” Sunday and made the comparison to Vietnam, saying Congress “made the mistake” of taking their lack of support for the war “out on the troops” by stopping the funding of the war. “We aren’t going to make the same mistake again”, he proclaimed.

I’m sorry, but I just don’t see how that decision 35 years ago was “a mistake”. Did it result in increased in casualties? Did Vietnam descend into chaos? Did it become a haven for terrorists or a “base” from which the Soviets could plot an attack on the U.S.? The answer to all those questions is a resounding “No”.

The Ghost of Richard Nixon saturates every pore of the Bush Administration, and now the Ghosts of Vietnam have begun to influence Congressional policy as well. And it might not be so bad if “what actually happened” was what was influencing those decisions, but instead, it’s the “fairy tale” version of events that never happened, forming policy decisions today. That’s a disaster waiting to happen.

Congresses basis for repealing the 2002 resolution that gave President Bush the power to “use force should he decide to do so” all on his own, is that the mission as defined by that 2002 resolution no longer exists. No WMD’s to protect us from. No more Saddam to overthrow. The power was given to President Bush in hopes that he would use it “as leverage” to force Iraq into cooperating, and draw other nations in to support the mission of peacefully dismantling Iraq’s weapons program. And you know what happened next. The Ghosts of Vietnam are desperately trying to teach us valuable lessons. But those lessons are being lost as we rewrite history and eschew courses of action based upon consequences that never happened.

Last year, President Bush visited Vietnam for the first time in his life, requiring little more security than he would if visiting New Mexico. Now a peaceful and developing country with bustling economy and no Soviet Tanks patrolling the streets, President Bush was asked what lesson Vietnam might have taught him about the war in Iraq. His horrifying response was “we’ll succeed unless we quit.” How could an American victory of turned out any better than what they have today? The people are not being repressed. Their economy is booming. They live in peace and are productive members of the International community. But there, directly in front of his host, President Fearless Leader says in essence, “if we had just killed a few thousand more of you and occupied your country a bit longer, you might still be living in the same peace and prosperity that you enjoy today, except that the U.S. would have a check in its Win column.” I bet that really went over well there!

And now Senator Levin is repeating the same mistake, trying to avoid “repeating a mistake” that never happened. Cutting off funding for the war in Vietnam didn’t COST lives. In fact, if it did anything, it SAVED lives by not drawing out the war any longer. And so we are 35 years later, with a Congress that was voted in to reverse… among other reasons like rampant corruption and abuses of power… the direction of the Iraq War, end this war and bring the troops home. Instead, the Congress is fearful of “pulling the plug”, trying to avoid “what happened last time”… which is nothing except a quick exit to the war.

One kudo however: the Democratic plan is to have “most” of the troops out of Iraq by “early” 2008, not “the end of” 2008 as so many others are proposing. So I guess we’re only going to kill “a few thousand more” before we get out of Vietnam… er, Iraq… this time around. Gotta make sure we get that check in the Win column!

Postscript: I am currently working on giving “Mugsy’s Rap Sheet” a full facelift by installing my own copy of the Blogging software, so that I am not limited to the pre-defined templates and color schemes only available to me now. The main drawback of this however is that our blog must be restarted from scratch. If you’ve Registered to receive update notifications and the ability to post comments, you will need to RE-REGISTER for the new blog. We deeply apologize for the inconvenience and will notify all our subscribers as to when the final update takes place. - Mugsy

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