Is Bush going to Vietnam a media oppurtunity? Military mixup fixed?
924313
Another chance to show what the Bush's ideal for Democracy should be.  We screw Cuba because it is in our back yard, but since Vietnam is becoming a growing textile industry we should send more of our american jobs and dollars to the communist countries.
966305
I dont know how to take you with the range of questions but this is so true.  Could you imagine if our media was on omaha beach on DDay.  wow...\n\nthe simple answer is news has no business in wars.  people dont want to hear the truth they cant handle it.  Let the military do their job.  News is a business, Just like any other business it needs viewers and what people want is death and destruction so thats what they get.  this same thing is what lost us Vietnam.  is anyone really surprised this time?\n\n"war is hell.  PR isnt much better"  General Dwight D Eisnehower.\n\nfor all of you saying there is no positives thanks for proving the point.
433436
Support the Troops, but not the war? Why don't you tell them "Hey! You guys are great, but what you're doing absolutely sucks"! Get a grip on reality. War is not easy, nor is it predictable. Many unforeseen things happen. Let me ask you this - how many terrorist attacks have been perpetrated on US soil since we've been in Iraq? Wouldn't you rather be fighting these fleabags over there? And do you realize that our forces, all volunteers by the way, overwhelmingly support the mission that they are fighting? Stop giving comfort to our enemies, and show an undivided front and unwavering support for our people and the mission that they are fighting. If you are not happy with the war, keep your trap shut and cast your vote at election time. This irresponsible BS is what caused the failure of the Vietnamese War. It's a war, and Generals, not journalists and anti-war demonstrators, should be fighting it and deciding its outcome!
878265
Probably not. We need to take our time to make sure this turns out the right way. If we try to leave to quickly the whole Iraq liberation would be a failure and we'd have another vietnam.
166564
Nixon tried the war bit as an excuse as well for wiretapping without a warrent and it didn't work for him so I think Bush has some trouble looming in the near future about that.  Add in other things done and I think we got a mess coming in the not so distant future!
1000150
Gee i seem to understand that America had a few problems ourselves after the revolution.  I mean like a previous answerer stated Germany and Japan were not fixed overnight.  The biggest difference between Iraq and Vietnam is that in Vietnam the Democrats would not let the military fight to win, but were more interested in making money on our dead 58,000 American soldiers than doing what needed to be done to help democracy succeed, but now the Republicans, much to the anger of the liberals, have turned the conflict over to the military so that they can do what they need to in order to win.  In wartime someone always makes money, but something you need to keep in mind is that most of the major conflicts America has been involved in the Democrats have squarely planted us in them.  You are so concerned with getting us out of Iraq, and so worried about the soldiers dying there, because Bush got us there, but you have said nothing about the American, and allied troops that still get into firefights in Bosnia!!!  Clinton put us there 11 years ago, and we still rotate troops there, but no says anything about Clinton's screwup!!  If you are going to ask these kind of questions, then at least have the balls, and intestinal fortitude to ask about ALL the places AMERICAN troops are dying in!!!!!
893793
If you believe Bush, which I don't, we won the same year we started.  What's going on now is peace and nation building.  What happened in Nam, and I was on active duty during the last three years, I retired at 20 years after Desert Storm, was that the Republicans, Nixon and Ford, caved as a result of public pressure and discontent with the body count.  Since Bush dodged service, I think has no understanding of that, and has set us up for the same result.  I will point out that our troops have done a lot of good for the Iraqis, I think our service people are the best of our best, my own daughter and her husband are on active duty.  Yes, I think a lot of us know the invasion was a mistake, I said so from day one, right now the question is how to fix it, and that is not something we will be able to do in a hurry.  Sad, but fact of life.
969990
I knew a K. Kelley during Nam who would have blown off someone's head on a whim. Hopefully, we have plenty of those in Iraq and Afghanistan right now. Those are the types needed to wage wars successfully, and wimpass reporters should be nowhere in sector at all!
1087932
I'm sure the US Military & its counterpart military allies are all aware Iraq is a conflict they can never win. The same as Vietnam. However, the military is subservient to its Gov'ts. It obeys orders and carries them out. Years from now when the Iraq veterans gather to rember the period and those lost maybe our politicians will have learnt to tread more carefully. Equally, if such a conflict is to be entered into again, do it with mercenaries and volunteers and allow them to set the rules and support them to the hilt & clamp down the media press. They M&V's will settle it in no time. As for the media press, its impossible to know whose damned side there on. They file every piece of dirt they can against our own men, totally forgetting what were up against, what were fighting. Were fighting Islam extremists. they dont have rules or values as we do. Our press and politicians will not  sit down and take a deep hard look at whats involved. Its time to pull out and let dog eat dog.
729995
Overestimation of their military power, lack of knowledge on the internal structures in Vietnam, ignoring the facts and a strong believe  that everything the US does is automatically the right thing.\n\nBasically the same like in Iraq?
930406
It's an act.  Offended by what exactly?  Kerry should stand his ground and show some balls on this issue.  The man is a Vietnam vet.  As such, he is much more qualified to comment on the Iraq issue or other military related issues than coward George W. Bush and his draft-dodging cronies.
1046685
Much of their leadership sees everything through the prism of Vietnam.  They helped lose the peace then.  They are NOW the Kerrys, Clintons, media leaders, academics, etc.  They beleive that all Democrats believe the same way.  This is, of course mistaken, but you wouldn't know it if you listened only to CNN, for instance.  In teh immediate case, they have never given up on hating Bush for winning in 2000.  Anything he says or does  is automatically wrong in their eyes.  It would be interesting to see how they would have reacted had B. Cinton done the same.
1055860
yes\n\nDuring a prime time press conference on April 13, President Bush was asked to name a mistake that he has made since taking office and what he has learned from it. Bush, who was unable to answer the question, admitted "maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with [a mistake]." But weeks later, Bush still hasn't answered the question. In the interest of assisting the President with this surprisingly difficult task we've compiled this list of 100 mistakes he has made since taking office:\n\nIraq\n\n1. Failing to build a real international coalition prior to the Iraq invasion, forcing the US to shoulder the full cost and consequences of the war.\n\n2. Approving the demobilization of the Iraqi Army in May, 2003 – bypassing the Joint Chiefs of Staff and reversing an earlier position, the President left hundreds of thousands of armed Iraqis disgruntled and unemployed, contributing significantly to the massive security problems American troops have faced during occupation.\n\n3. Not equipping troops in Iraq with adequate body armor or armored HUMVEES.\n\n4. Ignoring the advice Gen. Eric Shinseki regarding the need for more troops in Iraq – now Bush is belatedly adding troops, having allowed the security situation to deteriorate in exactly the way Shinseki said it would if there were not enough troops.\n\n5. Ignoring plans drawn up by the Army War College and other war-planning agencies, which predicted most of the worst security and infrastructure problems America faced in the early days of the Iraq occupation.\n\n6. Making a case for war which ignored intelligence that there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.\n\n7. Deriding "nation-building" during the 2000 debates, then engaging American troops in one of the most explicit instances of nation building in American history.\n\n8. Predicting along with others in his administration that US troops would be greeted as liberators in Iraq.\n\n9. Predicting Iraq would pay for its own reconstruction.\n\n10. Wildly underestimating the cost of the war.\n\n11. Trusting Ahmed Chalabi, who has dismissed faulty intelligence he provided the President as necessary for getting the Americans to topple Saddam.\n\n12. Disbanding the Sunni Baathist managers responsible for Iraq's water, electricity, sewer system and all the other critical parts of that country's infrastructure.\n\n13. Failing to give UN weapons inspectors enough time to certify if weapons existed in Iraq.\n\n14. Including discredited intelligence concerning Nigerian Yellow Cake in his 2003 State of the Union.\n\n15. Announcing that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended" aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, below a "Mission Accomplished" banner – more U.S. soldiers have died in combat since Bush's announcement than before it.\n\n16. Awarding a multi-billion dollar contract to Halliburton in Iraq, which then repeatedly overcharged the government and served troops dirty food.\n\n17. Refusing to cede any control of Post-invasion Iraq to the international community, meaning reconstruction has received limited aid from European allies or the U.N.\n\n18. Failing to convince NATO allies why invading Iraq was important.\n\n19. Having no real plan for the occupation of Iraq.\n\n20. Limiting bidding on Iraq construction projects to "coalition partners," unnecessarily alienating important allies France, Germany and Russia.\n\n21. Diverting $700 million into Iraq invasion planning without informing Congress.\n\n22. Shutting down an Iraqi newspaper for "inciting violence" – the move, which led in short order to street fighting in Fallujah, incited more violence than the newspaper ever had.\n\n23. Telling Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan about plans to go to war with Iraq before Secretary of State Colin Powell.\n\nCounterterrorism\n\n24. Allowing several members of the Bin Laden family to leave the country just
695148
It already has. \n\nBush keeps talking about achieving victory, but the sad fact of life is that there is no way to win in this situation. The best we can hope for is containment of the sectarian violence.\n\nI certainly hope this country treats the Iraq vets better than they did the Vietnam vets....
711971
He was probably micro-managing too much,i agree. That seems to be the American way since WW2.They need to boot them media schmucks out of there and take care of business.Let the military do what it was meant to do,break things.
609512
Wars going bad for them and they are losing support. Even from those who were all gung ho just last year. The public is saying 'it's a mess and we need to take care of ourselves first.' And 'this is another vietnam.' years and years if gurilla insurgents that continue to recruit with no end in sight. \n\nThey release the tape to remind us all why we're there. And maintain support for the war. A guy from saudi arabia, based in the sudan, is supposedly behind an attack and was maybe hiding in Afgahnistan so it's obvious that we need to free Iraq. \n\nThey didn't release the other two because we've still got years to go. Thier saving those for four more years till you need another reminder. \n\nThe medias been shut out of the loop unless they support the administration and have given up trying to get anything from them. The media who supports him is fine with using journalism to promote the national interest.
1042789
The President went to Iraq in order to boost his poor ratings in the polls. I doubt the CIA is failing him. Bush is a decider of what is a fact and what is not. He has decided that the occupation is worth it no matter how much blood is spilled. He has decided to call the puppet government a democracy.