Dubya Learns A Lesson

I know I might be a little late, but better late than never I always say, in congradulating our "War Time President" for finally making an appearance in Vietnam. Although Dubya and I are of the same generation, 37 long years seperate our visits to that particular country.

I was among the 2.7 million men of that generation that served in Vietnam, Dubya, and his "War Time Vice-President" were among the ones who didn't. Dubya was at Yale at the time, and it was there that he decided on a course of action that would enable to avoid Vietnam.

"I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment," Bush told the Dallas Morning News in 1990. "Nor was I willing to go to Canada. So I chose to better myself by learning how to fly airplanes." The fact that Dubya's service in the Guard was marred somewhat by his long and unauthorised absences should tell us something about just how much Dubya bettered himself.

Dick Cheney, on the other hand, while being vetted for service as George H.W. Bush's (Dubya's daddy) Defense Secretary by a Senate committee, is quoted as saying that he had "other priorities" at the time than fighting to Vietnam.

So Dubya has made it to Vietnam at last. That's nice. And not only did he finally get there, he managed to learn a few lessons from Vietnam that will enlighten us to his present stance on Iraq. After some simplistic statements about history being a "long march", and relationships "constantly being aletered to the good", and some platitudes about "hope" and "freedom", his final lesson from Vietnam was this:

"We'll succeed, unless we quit."

I, like many others, find this lesson a little confusing. Isn't this the same lesson that the Vietnamese learned from their experience of the war? Isn't Vietnam's present peaceful and prosperous existence due to the fact that America did indeed finally end the war by "quitting" it's disasterous policy of "Vietnamization" and pulling out?

This "War Time President", with his limited grasp of the lessons to be learned from history, and his comical grasp of international relations, never ceases to amaze me. This week our intrepid and globetrotting world leader is in China visiting with Chairman Hu. Good luck Dubya!