Past Comes Back to Haunt Us in Form of Kissinger
by Helen Thomas
WA****NGTON - Say it isn't so. Hawkish Henry Kissinger is advising
President Bush about Iraq war strategy? This is déjà vu all over again.
The former secretary of state -- who served in that job from 1973 to
1979 and previously from 1969 as national security affairs adviser --
inspires too many bad memories of the Vietnam War.
I remember when Kissinger came into the White House press room in
1972
just before the presidential election and announced "peace is at hand."
Three years later, we fled Saigon by our fingertips. Who can forget
the pictures of refugees piling into helicopters parked on Saigon
rooftops,
with the North Vietnamese army at the gate.
That was in 1975 and we survived the defeat. The U.S. and Vietnam
are
now friendly, with diplomatic and business links.
Kissinger is back as an elder statesman doling out advice to
embattled
Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney that "victory over the insurgency is
the
only meaningful exit strategy."
Journalist-author Bob Woodward describes Kissinger's strong
anti-withdrawal views in his new book "State of Denial."
Woodward wrote that the president has met privately with Kissinger
every couple of months, making him Bush's most regular outside adviser.
The
author said Cheney told him in the summer of 2005 that he meets with
Kissinger at least once a month.
Kissinger's message to the president and his top aides -- including
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice -- was they should not give an inch
and
to stick it out in Iraq.
He maintained that Vietnam collapsed like a house of cards because
the
Nixon administration did not have time, focus, energy and political
sup****t
and the American people did not have the will.
Actually, I recall things differently. As I remember it, thousands
of
Americans hit the streets to protest against the war. Neither President
Nixon nor Lyndon B. Johnson before him could sell the public on the need
to
remain in Southeast Asia. Besides, Nixon was elected in 1968 on his
campaign
slogan that he had a plan to end the war.
A selective memory may be forgivable, but not when old men continue
to
want to send young men and women to far off places to fight but can't
quite
explain why.
White House press secretary Tony Snow said Kissinger told him "he
sup****ts the overall thrust and direction of the administration policy" in
Iraq.
Snow also told re****ters that "victory was the only exit strategy
after the Civil War, and then after World War I and World War II.
Typically
in time of war, that is the exit strategy."
Excuse me, Tony, but surely you are not comparing the U.S. invasion
of
Iraq with the two world wars?
Kissinger also is quoted as saying that Bush needed to resist
pressure
to withdraw troops since that would create a momentum for an exit that is
less than victory.
Woodward said on CBS-TV's "60 Minutes" on Oct. 1 that "Kissinger's
fighting the Vietnam War again because, in his view, the problem in
Vietnam
was we lost our will." Well, Kissinger was right about that. The reason is
simple: People saw no reason to lose more lives there.
According to Woodward's book, Kissinger told Michael Gerson, Bush's
former chief speechwriter: "The president can't be talking about troop
reductions as a centerpiece."
To make his point, Kissinger gave Gerson a copy of a memo he had
written to President Nixon on Sept. 10, 1969.
"Withdrawal of U.S. troops will become like salted peanuts to the
American public. The more U.S. troops come home, the more will be
demanded,"
he wrote.
"It will become harder and harder to maintain the morale of those
who
remain, not to speak of their mothers," he said.
Kissinger also feels that public pressure for withdrawal from Iraq
would only encourage the enemy.
His views match the administration's 35-page "National Strategy for
Victory in Iraq" issued last year.
The administration would prefer not to evoke memories of the Vietnam
quagmire, the 58,000-plus American war dead, and its bitter legacy, yet it
all sounds too familiar when we hear officials insist we need to "stay the
course" and deride dissenters as those who want to "cut and run."
They seem to forget that "those who cannot remember the past are
condemned to repeat it."
© 1998-2006 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
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