Letter: The real lesson of Vietnam and Iraq

Thursday, Jan. 11, 2007 | 7:03 a.m.

Dave Dooley's Jan. 9 letter asserted that Vietnam fell because of a "gutless Democratic Congress," resulting in 3 million murders. But the deaths, mainly in Cambodia, were the consequence of our intense bombing of that country, resulting in a lethal destabilization of a neutral nation and the rise of Pol Pot.

To write that "Muslims have been attacking the U.S. for about 20 years" and "that only Republican presidents had the guts to do something about it" is a shallow and foolish statement. To blame Muslims in general panders to blind hate and handicaps a reasoned, intelligent response to the attacks by a small group of fanatics.

Iraq had no link to terrorist activities against the U.S. and Saddam was intolerant of al-Qaida as a threat to his dictatorship. What Republican Presidents Reagan and Bush Sr. did was support Saddam during his worst atrocities because he was a hedge against fundamentalist Iran. President Clinton's military responses to terrorist attacks were derided by Republicans as attempts to divert attention from the all-important Monica affair.

The current President Bush destroyed Iraq's infrastructure without a realistic postwar plan, and we are bogged down in a sectarian civil war that has nothing to do with worldwide terrorism and has diverted our attention and our ability to respond to that threat.

It is great to have the "guts" to respond to a threat, but to do so lacking integrity, clear vision, intelligence and, perhaps, some wisdom, results in failure. This is the real message of Vietnam and Iraq.

Steve Brittingham, Mount Charleston