Kissinger Debunks Dem War Rhetoric
Bottom Line Up Front: In contrast with Democrats, Henry Kissinger says the conflict in Iraq cannot be won without a U.S. military presence.
For 3 years, Democrats have consistently been calling Iraq a quagmire, comparing it to Vietnam and claiming that Operation Iraqi Freedom “cannot be won militarily”. DNC Chairman Howard Dean and Democratic Congressman Jack Murtha, whom incoming House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi lauds as a ”magnificent contributor to the debate on the war in Iraq”, all say that the war on terror in Iraq cannot be won militarily.
However, not everyone agrees. Henry Kissinger, the German born Secretary of State of the United States from 1973 to 1977 for Presidents Nixon and Ford, helped negotiate an end to the Vietnam war in 1973. Kissinger was interviewed this morning on Fox News Live at 10:15 am EST/9:15 am EST with E.D. Hill about the similarities between Iraq, Vietnam and whether this war can be won militarily. Below is the transcript:
HILL: President Bush (is) in Vietnam for an economic summit, the first visit to a country where America lost a two decade long fight against Communism. And the Commander in Chief says the Vietnam war is a lesson for today’s conflict in Iraq, and that it takes time to trump hatred.
HILL: As you saw Pres. Bush in Vietnam, what went through your mind as he was saying that we have to draw lessons from the Vietnam war as we wage this battle in Iraq?
KISSINGER: The Vietnam war really was a different kind of war from the war in Iraq. The Vietnam war was an episode in the Cold War. This is an episode more of an ideological conflict with no clear cut front lines as there were in Vietnam towards the end. So there was a government from the other side in Vietnam with which to negotiate. There is no government really on the terrorist side in Iraq, so that is a very important difference.
HILL: So when people say, “Iraq is another Vietnam” you would respond that it’s not even close.
KISSINGER: The local conditions are not even close. The only similarity is that some of the divisions in our country can reach a point where it becomes difficult to do any creative foreign policy.
HILL: There are some concerns in Washington DC that the military alone can’t win the war in Iraq. When you take a look at what the conditions are, what the outside influences are on this region, do you think it is a political solution that will end the conflict in Iraq, or is this something that the military can handle?
KISSINGER: I don’t like the distinction between saying “Is this a military or a political solution?” because when you say “political solution” then it implies that there is no military component to it. Clearly, there has to be a political negotiation about the whole area, but that cannot possibly work unless the United States is present and unless the terrorists and Iran don’t believe they can sweep the field by themselves. So we have the requirement of a military balance and a diplomatic initiative, and the two have to go together.
Logistically, Iraq and Vietnam aren’t even close. Kissinger has argued for several years that Vietnam and Iraq are dissimilar, except in that the anti-war movement divides the country to the point that it may ruin our foreign policy, preventing success. Clearly the vitriol by the anti-war left is a flash back to the 60’s and 70’s pro-communist, anti-war movement, which succeeded in America’s first defeat. In this interview, Kissinger expressed that negotiations “cannot possibly work” without a U.S. military presence, stating that the two must coincide.
The end to the Vietnam war negotiated by Kissinger through the Paris Peace Accords, signed in 1973 by the U.S., North Vietnam, South Vietnam and the Viet Cong. Under the terms, the U.S. agreed to immediately halt all military activities and withdraw all remaining military personnel within 60 days. The North Vietnamese agreed to an immediate cease-fire and the release of all American POWs within 60 days.
However, in June of 1973, the U.S. Congress passed an amendment forbidding any further U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia, effective August 15, 1973. Funding to the South Vietnamese stopped and the way was paved for communist North Vietnam to wage another invasion of the South, this time without fear of U.S. military consequence.
Two years later came the fall of Saigon, in which communist North Vietnam invaded the South, knowing the United States would not defend the South Vietnamese, and more than one million South Vietnamese were slaughtered or thrown into “re-education camps”. This is what happens when America cuts and runs.
On Thursday, Nancy Pelosi made these statements as the incoming Democratic leaders held their press conference in DC:
I was proud to support him (Murtha) for majority leader, because I thought that would be the best way to bring an end to the war in Iraq. I know that he will continue to take the lead on that issue for our caucus, for this Congress, for our country.
I believe the biggest ethical challenge facing our country is the war in Iraq.
For all the reasons that you know, that you don’t need me to go into, it must be stopped.
I have to be who I am. And I am a person who is committed to ending this war. It is a grotesque mistake that is costing lives, limbs, over a trillion dollars cost in dollars, reputation in the world, cost to our military. And I promised that I would do everything possible to end it.
Make no mistake about it: the Democratic plan for “change” in Iraq means ending the war, and ending it now. What makes the Pelosi/Murtha ”plan” a grotesque mistake is that this is not a successful plan for winning Iraq, but a defeated plan to exit. The Democratic objective is not to win, it is to quit. The result of such a grotesque plan is slaughter, betrayal and abandonment. Kissinger believes that, like U.S. military leaders, success is not possible without the military.
Iraq may not be a Vietnam now, but it’s not too late.
Vietnam was America’s first defeat. Will we make Iraq our second?
EXTRA: Great Kissinger Quotes
Cross-posted @ Amy’s Blog: Bottom Line Up Front
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