Vietnam and Iraq Wars Essay Example for Free

Vietnam and Iraq struggles Es gradeAmerican involvement in Vietnam has root which preceded the actual deployment of troops, just as the current chapter of the Iraqi War has roots that reach, some would argue, at least as far back as the end of humanness War II. These two arenas, where America chose to enforce its foreign policy at gunpoint, have many similarities, though obviously they appear to be radically different. The two warfarefares began with two very different American presidents telling the voluminous Lie to the American people and their duly elected representatives, though there are subtle differences in how they came to be told. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident supposedly occurred when two American cruisers, operating within a fewer miles of the nitrogen Vietnamese coast are said to have come below fire by North Vietnamese gunboats. This fabricated incident led Congress to grant Johnson powers to prosecute the war. According to reports released under the Freedom of Information Act it is seriously doubtful as to whether such attacks actually occurred. The twenty-first vitamin C continuation of the Persian Gulf War of the 1990s began with an American president telling the American people and their duly elected representatives a nonher Big Lie.He said, while in possession of reports to the contrary, that the leader of Iraq had a messed weapons of mass destruction, meaning, it was assumed, either nuclear devices or chemical and/or biological weapons. He further stated, knowing it was not likely, that the Iraqi leader was involved in the attack on the twin towers of the World Trade Center. For their knowledge solid grounds, Lyndon Johnson and George Walker Bush both chose to obfuscate facts in furtherance of their political agenda. In Vietnam the American rubbish men never lost an engagement with the enemy.They won every battle, yet lost the war. Some say the war was lost in the streets of America, victim of bad publicity. The French had held the Vietnamese in colonial thraldom since the 19th century, and were only driven out by the Japanese in 1941. At the end of World War II the French decided that they had the right to return as feudal lords. The Viet Minh challenged this assertion, and in 1954, at the battle of Dien Bien Phu, they drove home their point. The French commander committed suicide before the garrison drip to the guerillas under command of the brilliant tactician, General Giap.France pulled out once again, but instead of letting Vietnam blend and hold elections, the U. N. partitioned it. This set the stage for North Vietnams president Ho Chi Min to beat to unify his nation by force, which the Americans inexplicably chose to challenge, culminating in Lyndon Johnson lying to get his war powers act through Congress. This war, which seemed to be the sole business of the Vietnamese people, became a quagmire to the Americans, and cost Johnson his presidency in the end. It brought shame and disrepute on the U nited States as Bushs Iraqi War has done in the 21st century.Bush lied to obtain the needed powers to wage a war in Iraq. The Iraq War began with Americans ceremonial occasion U. S. Military power raining destruction from the air on the people of Iraq. The American president screamed, contract it on to taunt the enemy, and after a short time landed on an American carrier wave ship, greeted by a banner proclaiming, Mission Accomplished. Unfortunately that was another deception. Now Iraq, like Vietnam, is a quagmire and Bush has no more of an exit strategy then did Lyndon Johnson. Of Vietnam, Pete Seeger, the folk singer sang, cannon deep in the big profound, and the big fool said to push on (Seeger 1967).The big muddy was, naturally, Vietnam, and the big fool giving the order to keep marching was Lyndon Johnson. Few march today in protest of an equally un-winnable war and no one but the loyal opposition calls Bush a big fool. Still the parents of America fatalities know that th eir sons and daughters are just as dead as those who died in Vietnam, for the same lame reasons, in wars justified by lies. In declassified documents released in late 2005, Robert Hanyok, a National Security Agency Historian said, that a second attack, on August 4, 1964, by North Vietnamese torpedo boats on U. S.ships, did not occur despite claims to the contrary by the Johnson administration (Prados 2004). Prados, a NSA archivist has said he believes it is vital to have this information come to light, saying that the Johnson Administration, used this claim to weather retaliatory air strikes (ibid). There are disturbing parallels between the lie concerning the Gulf of Tonkin Incident and the manipulated password used to justify the Iraqi War, according to the historian. It is only due to public pressure that the secret performance allowed the documents to be declassified some forty years after the fact.The Bush Administration did not demand the truth out for the obvious reason o f the comparisons that can be made to his untruths concerning Iraq. John W. Dean, former washrag House counsel to Richard Nixon, said in 2003, that, George W. Bush made a number of unequivocal statements about the reason the United States needed to pursue the most radical actions any nation can undertake acts of war against another nation. Now it is clear that many of his statements appear to be false (Dean 2003).Dean posed the rhetorical question of whether lying to start a war is an impeachable offense against a sitting U. S. President. It is only rhetorical because of the fact the lying chief executives party had sufficient control of the legislative starting time of government. The party apparently believed that lying about sex is impeachable but lying to start war is just presidential politics. Bush began a series of misstatements, obfuscations, diversions and lies beginning in 2002 as he began to beat his war drum across the United States.In speech after speech he made un quiet and wilder claims regarding the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq political science continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised (Bush, G. W. 2003). He even sent his deposit of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on the speech circuit, saying (Rumsfeld) personally knew where these weapons were located. They were never found. They never existed. It was all a lethal humbug foisted on America by the Bush/Cheney regime.It was argued that Vietnam was fought in defense of the Domino Theory. It has also been suggested that the Iraq War is macrocosm fought for the Haliburton Theory, in which American troops have seized Iraqi oil to increase the profits of an American throne under the control of the sitting vice-president. What is proven is that the Iraq War, like its predecessor, the Vietnam War, was begun with a Big Lie for which the liar has not been called to account. Intel ligence sources reports exposed each set of lies for what they are, yet neither Johnson nor Bush has been held accountable.ReferencesBush, G.W. Iraq Denial and Deception (speech) Mar. 17, 2003 Retrieved 5-10-08 Fromhttp//www.whitehouse.gov/ intelligence/releases/2003/03/20030317-7.htmlDean, J. 2003 Missing Weapons of Mass Destruction Retrieved 5- 11-08 fromhttp//writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20030606.htmlPrados, J. 2004 Tonkin Gulf Intelligence Skewed Retrieved 5-10-08 From