My dad served as head of G2 (intelligence) for the First Division in Vietnam. Next to a huge map of Vietnam with red pins marking bombing runs, he had a large caricature of himself on the wall – him in a swamp trying to pull a plug and the caption “How am I supposed to drain the swamp when I’m up to my ass in alligators?”

Darn constraining alligators. Bite you in the ass every time if you let’em.

Joe, some American humorist wrote that the trouble isn’t that people are ignorant — it’s that they know so much that ain’t so. Bush doesn’t “promote ignorance” — he actively spreads disinformation. Like most Presidents, including Clinton. And the US corporate media have always helped; during the Vietnam era, for example. It’s well established that the more you rely on the corporate media, the more misinformed you’ll be. So, a responsible citizen must actively seek out better information.

DallasNE is a good example of someone who knows so much that ain’t so. “The killing fields” had already been getting media attention in the US when the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia. The Reagan gang knew exactly who they were supporting when they backed Pol Pot against the Vietnamese (as they knew when they backed Saddam Hussein a couple of years later). The big lie in Bush’s statement is that the “millions” who died in Southeast Asia were mostly killed by the US before we withdrew. The worst consequence was probably in Cambodia, but we’d already killed a million or so before Pol Pot took over, and certainly we would have killed many more if we’d stayed.

As if it weren’t possible for a more powerful force to screw things up enough early on to make the war unwinnable.

Jonnan

We even sided at first with Pol Pot when the Vietnam army invaded and overthrew Pol Pot. It was only later that the killing fields were discovered.

If the killing fields of Cambodia were a result of our leaving then Vietnam would not have invaded Cambodia to remove Pol Pot. That dog doesn’t hunt.