On June 2, 2004 he again he linked the "Big One" with what's happening in Iraq, while
speaking to commencement graduates at the Air Force Academy. Noting that the "struggle" (Iraq) was unique, he then obliquely linked it to the "great clashes of the last century," by which he meant WWII. Then, in full campaign mode here, he shifted into focus: he compared the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which precipitated U.S. involvement in World War II:
Like the Second World War, our present conflict began with a ruthless surprise attack on the United States," Bush said "We will not forget that treachery, and we will accept nothing less than victory over the enemy.
Described by White House aides as a follow-up to a speech he had delivered the week before outlining five general steps for bringing democracy to Iraq, the speech continued the pattern of deceptive politics for which he is now famous.
But there was more--this time about Osama (remember him?):
He said the fight against Osama bin Laden -- the terrorist mastermind implicated in the 9/11 attacks and others against the United States and Europe -- is a fight against "darkness across the Middle East."
Then, last December, the 63rd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Bush again raised the
ghostly specter:
In a nationally televised speech at Camp Pendleton, a U.S. Marine base in southern California that has one of the highest casualty rates in Iraq, Bush thanked the Marines for their service in the Middle Eastern country.
Bush linked the "threat of global terrorism" today to the war on "fascism and imperial communism" in World War II and vowed to prevail.
"Today's war on terror will not end with a ceremony, a surrender ceremony on a deck of a battleship," he said, "but it will end with victory."
For the next round of polls, it would be interesting to see results on the following question:
Do you believe the War in Iraq will end with victory?
Some Republicans as well have strained eagerly to force the WWII frame, but with nothing more than the calendar in hand. This is
Scarborough:
Let's pray to God that on the 60th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, the American people will posses the same resolve that their brave men and women in uniform carry with them every day as they wake up for work in Iraq.
Circle January 30th on your calendar as Iraq's D-day, because our enemies know as Hitler did in 1944, that a U.S. victory on that date will mean the beginning of the end for the forces of evil.
Our WWII European enemy. A well-defined military regime which invaded and conquered an entire continent and exterminated six million people, with its sights expressly set on the world.
Our Iraq enemy. A vague, ill-defined, decentralized force which can melt into the citizenry at the drop of a hat, preventing our military from identifying them as friend or foe. Their only aim is to wreck havoc without remorse (or honor) on the next nearest human being, regardless of their affiliation. It's a guerrilla army which, as history has shown again and again, can exist in perpetuity. New, faceless, nameless members of this force are joining every day from all points of the Middle East region.
The definition of victory in WWII Europe. Defeat the Nazi regime by destroying it's well-defined, uniformed military; conquering its capital; and capturing or killing its commanders and politicians.
The definition of victory in Iraq. We don't know for sure. Scarborough, the GOP, and the Bush administration are wishfully thinking that elections will somehow scare the guerrilla enemy into submission. If the largest military force the world has ever known hasn't scared them, how could a ramshackled, facade of an election possibly deter their efforts?
But he was also smacked down by another one of those wacky jokesters in the
Waco Trib online. (If you're in Crawford, Waco is the "city.") Here's
John Young on the subject:
You think it was a cheap shot for Ted Kennedy to call Iraq George Bush's Vietnam. Depending on the outcome, you can still be right.
But when Bush compares the gambit in Iraq to World War II, he raises the market price on cheap analogies.
Snip> In terms of shifting motivation, the parallels between Iraq and Vietnam are eerie. Both were launched on the pretext of defending Americans.
In 1964, supposedly we'd been attacked without provocation in the Gulf of Tonkin. Actually we'd been orchestrating covert raids into North Vietnam.
In 2003, we were led to believe that Iraq had something to do with Sept. 11. If not that, we were led to believe it had chemical weapons stockpiled, drone planes, mobile bio-weapons labs and nuclear centrifuges in the making.
The Gulf of Tonkin incident faded in memory while leaving in place an all-purpose congressional declaration, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, by which the White House made Vietnam the central front in a war against global communism.
Now we are left without any of the central pretexts by which Bush sold the invasion of Iraq. Yet with an all-purpose resolution by Congress, we are using Iraq as the central front in the war on terrorism.
Against this claim, it is more than reasonable to assert that invading and occupying Iraq does more for al-Qaida recruitment than anything imaginable.
All of this is immaterial, Bush tells us today. Whatever we heard him say in '03 about WMD, this is about the onward march of freedom.
This case of geopolitical marble-mouth. We are asked to compare with the echoes of Roosevelt and Churchill. More and more Americans refuse to swallow it.But start reprinting the history books. Henceforth, Operation Iraqi Freedom shall be known as Good War II.
Once again, the frame keeps shifting. The GOP just can't make the WWII frame fit. The reason the GOP is so disturbed is not simply because of the images of Cindy Sheehan or Joan Baez. It's because the GOP message machine is broken. Some veterans of WWII, Korea, and Vietnam find more resonance in the Iraqatastrophe/Vietnam frame. And they are speaking out. In addition to Chuck Hagel, Anthony Zinni, Barry McCaffery, and even John McCain seem to turn to our more recent past when discussing our current problems.
We heard the garbage and the lies," retired Marine general Anthony Zinni told a group of Marine Corps officers Sept. 4, referring to the government's handling of news in Vietnam. "We saw the sacrifice, and we swore never again would we allow it to happen," said Zinni, who fought in Vietnam and went on to command all U.S. forces in the Middle East before retiring in 2000. "And I ask you, is it happening again?"
Zinni's point is precisely why the WWII frame won't stick. What infuriated and motivated most Americans to protest the war in Vietnam was that the government
lied to us and to our troops. John McCain and others commented on this as early as 2003, drawing an
uncomfortable parallel between today's dilemma about Iraq and the government's messaging system during Vietnam:
"The American press and the American public saw our leaders talk about a 'light at the end of the tunnel' that did not exist" during the Vietnam War. We can win the war in Iraq, but not if we lose popular support in the United States."
Dan Christman, a retired Army three-star general who served in Vietnam in 1969, says that if the United States is struggling to maintain order in Iraq a year from now, a battalion of dissenters could grow into a small army. "There are an awful lot of retired officers who agree with General Zinni," he says. "This really resonates."
The main reason why Bush's comparisons to World War II will never work is that those who fought in that war and those who fought in Vietnam see the difference. The logical disconnection between that war and the current predicament in Iraq is profound. In fact, the differences are so obvious that GWB himself should recognize them.
According to the
Salt Lake Tribune, even some of those in today's audience were also unconvinced:
And World War II Navy veteran Thomas Foeorene, of Virginia, was more blunt. He said too many soldiers are dying and that the cost of the war is reeling out of control and hurting the U.S. economy.
"Get this war over with," he said. "They are too young to be soldiers. They're killing the cream of the crop. He [Bush] told us the war was over a while back and it's not over.
Despite the number of times it is invoked, the frame fails. Perhaps if we hadn't all witnessed a shifting set of rationales for starting the War in Iraq, we might be more easily fooled this time.
It's really very simple: If the message doesn't resonate with those who fought in or remember those wars, or with those who've lost loved ones in Iraq, it's time for an explanation, an apology, and an exit plan.