Our Man in Vienna

Bill Maher, Vietnam in Retrospect

Bill is thumbs down on Iraq and thumbs up on Vietnam. Guess Dick and Henry are his men.

“I’ve been hearing nothing but Vietnam was a wasted war – we should never have gone.
I think it was a necessary war….What won the Cold War is that we demonstrated to the bullies of the world that we put ourselves on the line and spend lives. The Vietnam War didn’t have to be in Vietnam, but it had to happen somewhere….The Russians lost 20 million people in World War II.” [1]

That’s right, Bill, 65 thousand American and 2 million Vietnamese lives were spent to show the Russians that we meant business. “Squandered” is a better word than ”spent.” Bad luck for the Vietnamese that it happened there! Good luck for the countries where it didn’t happen!

Do you remember that the war ended in a rout? We were routed and we couldn’t or wouldn’t evacuate the majority of Vietnamese who were on “our side.” The end was a horrible and humiliating disaster.

Yes Bill, we showed the Russians all right. We showed them that David could stand up to Goliath – only David wasn’t us. It was them – the Vietnamese.

And the Russians guffawed, along with the others who bore ill will towards us. They slapped their thighs and called us a paper tiger.

As we know, Johnson and his Kennedy cabinet were negotiating to come to an end. Then Nixon scotched the negotiations, and he and Kissinger prolonged the war, with the bombing of Hanoi and the incursion into Cambodia.

Good luck for the Democrats that the final chapter came under Ford’s presidency.
Now, as for 20 million Russian lives lost, that was due to Stalin’s purge of the Soviet general staff and the ouster of Trotsky, a capable military commander, in the Thirties – as well as Stalin’s faith and trust in his erstwhile ally, Hitler.

The Russians were on the run when we bailed them out with weapons, food and military pressure from the West. What the hell did Stalin care for the millions of lives lost?! Had the Soviet Union been prepared for war, there would not have been the initial rout – there’s that word again.

Maher also approves of U. S. support and interventions for unsavory right-wing dictatorships that occurred under Republican administrations to “stop Communism.” Yes, Bill, rape, torture and murder were all for a good cause.

And by the way, fighting Communism was Hitler’s pretext for invading the Soviet Union.

Sounds like Dick and Henry are your men. Go on over to Fox News, Bill! They can use you there! Only, not even they are that foolhardy concerning past blunders, with the emphasis on fool.

Question

Why would anyone who is opposed to the Iraq misadventure approve of the Vietnam misadventure?