Bush Compares Iraq War to Vietnam War

Remember when rightwingers would resist any comparison to these two failed military adventures. Well, it appears that President Bush is in Vietnam saying that past war offers lessons for the Iraq adventure:

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) – U.S. President George W. Bush said Friday the United States’ unsuccessful war in Vietnam three decades ago offered lessons for the American-led struggle in Iraq. “We’ll succeed unless we quit,” Bush said shortly after arriving in this one-time war capital. Bush met here with Australian Prime Minister John Howard, one of America’s strongest allies in Iraq, Vietnam and other conflicts. The president said there were lessons to be learned from the divisive Vietnam war – the longest conflict in U.S. history – as the United States wages an unpopular war in Iraq. “We tend to want there to be instant success in the world, and the task in Iraq is going to take a while,” the president said. He called the Iraq war a “great struggle” and said, “It’s just going to take a long period of time for the ideology that is hopeful – and that is an ideology of freedom – to overcome an ideology of hate.”

Ahem! Bush is drawing precisely the wrong lesson.

Update: Julie Mason tells this joke:

As we all know from his first presidential campaign, Bush has never been to Vietnam before. Here’s a joke in circulation (we assume the originator prefers to go unnamed):
Q: How is Vietnam different from Iraq?
A: Bush had a plan for getting out of Vietnam.

Ouch!