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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>I agree with you more than words can say,
Joan.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>In fact I am waiting for Bush to take
another quote from Tricky Dick Nixon: Withdrawal with Honor. After
President Johnson had realized that he had been lied to by General Westmoreland
concerning US successes in Vietnam, he (Johnson) withdrew from the 1968
election feeling responsible to the American people for the lies told him by
his subordinates. In response to the peoples’ fervor over our
continued failings in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Vietnam</st1:place></st1:country-region>,
Nixon campaigned on “Withdrawal with Honor”. The war
continued until August 1975.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>I have an old shirt that I wore at another
rally years and years ago: “Southeast Asia War Games, <st1:Street
w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Second Place</st1:address></st1:Street>”
The names and the faces have changed. But it is still the same game, just
another venue.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>And the beat goes on.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Tom Hansen<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on"><font size=2
color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
color:navy'>Moscow</span></font></st1:City><font size=2 color=navy
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>, <st1:State
w:st="on">Idaho</st1:State></span></font></st1:place><font size=2 color=navy
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=navy face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'>"Patriotism is not a short and
frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a
lifetime." <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=navy face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 color=navy face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'>--Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>
<hr size=3 width="100%" align=center tabindex=-1>
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<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma;font-weight:bold'>From:</span></font></b><font size=2
face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'>
vision2020-bounces@moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces@moscow.com] <b><span
style='font-weight:bold'>On Behalf Of </span></b>Joan Opyr<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Sent:</span></b> Wednesday, January 19, 2005
8:46 PM<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>To:</span></b> Vision2020 Moscow<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Subject:</span></b> [Vision2020] Re: The
consequences of losing the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>
war</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'>Here's a news flash for you, Coop: we <u>are</u> losing
the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>
war. We don't have enough troops to secure the country.
We don't have enough international military support and/or financing to
train Iraqi police and security forces to replace US soldiers in country; we
don't have enough to rebuild the nation's infrastructure and economy; we
don't have enough to ensure that the upcoming elections are free, fair, and
recognized as legitimate by even a slender majority of Iraqis. We
are now reaping the sad consequences of the Bush Administration's
inadequate, pie-in-the-sky, ideologically rigid and unrealistic pre-war planning.
<st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region> is no longer a disaster
in the making; <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>
is a disaster<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'>Recently, I've been re-reading a variety of histories of
the Vietnam War. They've been disheartening but instructive.
>From 1964 to 1972, militarily-speaking, we threw everything we had short
of a nuclear bomb at a small peasant country in <st1:place w:st="on">Southeast
Asia</st1:place>. We dropped more than 7 million tons of ordnance
on <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Vietnam</st1:place></st1:country-region>
-- nearly one five-hundred pound bomb for every person living in the
country. We installed the "democratic" Diem regime, which grew
increasingly unpopular with every bomb we dropped and every "military
advisor" we sent, and when his hold on power became untenable, we sat back
and allowed his generals (trained and installed by us) to stage a coup.
They drove Diem and his brother out to the back country and shot
them. Not surprisingly, the generals who succeeded Diem proved to be
even less popular, so we sent more military advisors. And still we
were losing the war.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'>In 1964, President Johnson used the <st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">CIA-fabricated</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Gulf</st1:PlaceType>
of Tonkin incident as an excuse to launch full-scale war on <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Vietnam</st1:place></st1:country-region>.
The Tonkin Resolution, which gave Johnson carte blanche to do as he pleased
in retaliation for the "attack," passed unanimously in the House
and with only two dissenting votes in the Senate. Johnson
sent 200,000 <st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region>
soldiers to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Vietnam</st1:place></st1:country-region>
in 1965 and another 200,000 in 1966. At the height of the war in 1968,
there were 500,000 <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region>
troops in country. We dropped almost twice as many bombs on <st1:country-region
w:st="on">Vietnam</st1:country-region> as we had dropped during World War II on
Europe and <st1:place w:st="on">Asia</st1:place> combined. And, guess
what? We were still losing. Support for Ho Chi Minh and
the Viet Cong continued to grow throughout the countryside. We
undermined our own hearts and minds campaigns by being heartless and mindless.
We razed entire villages to the ground, established "free-fire
zones" where everyone and anyone could be and was shot on sight, and our
government, without deviation, lied to us wholesale about the conduct of the
war, our chances of victory, and our support within the country. By
the end of 1968, more than 40,000 US soldiers were dead and a quarter of a
million were wounded. And where were we in terms of winning <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Vietnam</st1:place></st1:country-region>? Nowhere.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'>When Nixon came into office, he began withdrawing US
troops. By 1972, we were back down to 150,000. The
bombing, however, continued. In fact, it intensified. Nixon
launched an indefensible invasion of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Cambodia</st1:country-region>;
he carpet-bombed that country and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Laos</st1:place></st1:country-region>; and we were losing, losing,
losing.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'>What's the lesson here? What's the thing we haven't
learned? I don't know, but here's a wild guess: you can't impose
democracy at the point of a gun. The invading army of a
far-away nation cannot win a long-term guerilla war against a determined local
resistance -- not if that invading army wants to impose democracy rather than
just flatten the place. Some of you might argue, of course, that we
should just flatten <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>:
I believe the popular expression is "bomb them back to the stone
age." We might "win" that way, but then we'd lose all that
lovely oil. And perhaps the oil of all of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s lovely neighbors. And
the costs -- not just human but, more important for the Bush Administration,
financial -- would be untenable.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'>It's easy to argue that we can't afford to lose <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>.
It's also easy to see that we can't afford to keep it. That's our
conundrum, isn't it? We've broken it, but we can't afford to buy it, and
so we're not allowed to leave the store. Here's my tragic prediction,
ready to be printed out and time-capsuled for your reading pleasure in the year
2034: <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region> will
be run by an oppressive Shiite militia. We'll do business with them
because we need their oil; they'll do business with us because they need our
money. There will be no democracy in <st1:City w:st="on">Baghdad</st1:City>,
but there will be a new memorial wall in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Washington</st1:City>,
<st1:State w:st="on">DC</st1:State></st1:place>, and on it will be the names
of thousands of US soldiers, missed by their families, mourned by their
children, and forgotten by their government.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Verdana><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Verdana'>Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment <br>
<br>
Auntie Establishment<br>
Serving <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Idaho</st1:place></st1:State>'s
liberal elite since 1993<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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