Today, I'd like to begin by again thanking all of you for your support as I continue in my challenge to bring a new standard of leadership to Washington. As many of you know, I am a 24 year retired Navy Commander, and last week I explained why Don't Ask/Don't Tell must be overturned. Although that's not a popular position amongst many circles, I wanted to let you know that I've received a number of phone calls and emails from a number servicemen and women, past and present, who strongly agree with my position.
This week, I'd like to discuss something that's made me especially sick with disgust. On Wednesday, the President, in front of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, compared the war in Iraq to the war in Vietnam. Nothing upsets me more than when a National Guard dropout, who's put our volunteer military on the line, starts using our troops to explain his own failures.
When the George Bush declared that Iraq is like Vietnam, I couldn't help but agree with him in that it's a quagmire in a part of the world where we do not belong, costing the lives of thousands of soldiers and civilians, with no end in sight. That's where our agreement stops.
President Bush, a man that does not base his decisions in reality, believes that we must stay the course in Iraq because Vietnam collapsed following our exit. For starts, one must remember that Vietnam was one of the absolute worst catastrophes that our nation has ever, EVER been involved in. I think it's a stretch to say that the lesson of Vietnam is anything other than don't get involved in unnecessary wars. Let us not forget that the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, a manufactured and false attack that was reported to the American people as a real attack on American warships patrolling the international waters off of Vietnam that never happened. History has now reported that the attacked was a manufactured false political event that was used to propel the Congress into passing the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and ten of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese died as a result. It was a political lie propagated on the American people to justify the continuance and "ramp up" of American military forces in South East Asia.
I am not an apologist for the atrocities that were and in some cases continue to be committed the authoritarian government of Vietnam. I fully understand the history of the efforts by the Vietnamese North to force unification on the South and I also fully understand the incredible inhumanity of the aftermath of the fall of the South. The tens of thousand who were interned, the hundreds of thousands who were forced into the sea in wave and after wave of boat people many of whom eventually made landfall in the United States – this is all historical fact. What I say here is that the political justification used in Congress to justify the war was a blatant bald faced lie that was known to those in power at the time and used to fool the American people into accepting the war as a necessary part of facing down the Soviet Union in the hottest days of the Cold War.
Now George Bush is using that conflict to justify his continued failed leadership in Iraq – it’s wrong and we must stand to tell anyone who will listen that it is wrong. We must unify the Democratic Party as the Party of true National Security not just the illusion of National Security.
One of the most interesting outcomes of this ridiculous comparison has been the backlash from members of the President's own party. The day after Bush made his comments, Republican Senator John Warner came out swinging, saying that the President was wrong with his comparison and demanded that we start withdrawing our troops. Perhaps the most direct retaliation came from my friend Senator Max Cleland who had a number of things to say during the Democratic Party's weekly radio address:
"One of the lessons to be learned from Vietnam is that the commitment of American military strength alone cannot solve another country's political weakness," Cleland said today in the Democratic Party's weekly radio address. "This should be a somber warning to us all to responsibly end the war in Iraq and the additional loss of precious American lives."
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"I've seen this movie before. I know how it ends," Cleland, who lost both legs and his right arm in a grenade explosion in 1968, said. "I know all the PR in the world didn't change the truth on the ground in Vietnam and won't change the truth on the ground today in Iraq."
I find it hard to grasp that the President would make such an assertion when those that have served seem to disagree so vehemently.
This week, I wrote a guest editorial in our local paper, The Corning Leader, which explains my position on my opponent's silence following these absurd comments from George Bush. I believe that it's the duty of a sitting member of Congress to speak out when our troops lives are on the line and the President is making incorrect statements. Below is a copy of the text from that editorial, which can be viewed in its "print" version at the fighting29th.com:
Randy Kuhl's Silent Agreement is Unacceptable
President Bush and Congressman Randy Kuhl have now sunk to new lows by invoking the image of the Vietnam Conflict to justify continued American military involvement in a three way ethnic Civil War in Iraq. Those who never served in the military (President Bush was dismissed from the National Guard for insufficient participation and Kuhl enjoyed nine years of draft deferments during the Vietnam conflict) are now touting the exact wrong lessons learned from that terrible, embittering strategic mistake in Vietnam to justify their ongoing terrible, embittering strategic mistake in Iraq.
The United States tried for 13 years to select and prop up a succession of failed puppet governments in South Vietnam only to replace them with ever increasingly corrupt and uncooperative regimes. Sound familiar?
Now George Bush and his silent rubberstamps in Congress are threatening us with the potential of Iraqi civil strife and justifying the loss of American life with the potential of that Vietnam era like violence. Yet it was George Bush and Randy Kuhl who voted and signed a free trade agreement (109th Congress, H.R. 6406) with the very follow on regime in Vietnam that inflicted upon the Vietnamese people the concentration camps and mass boat people exoduses that Bush evokes. This free trade agreement with the very government that wrought the havoc upon the Vietnamese people that George Bush refers to, has taken jobs from the middle class of America and sent them to the newly reconstructed factory sites that once housed the prisons used to hold Americans in never ending captivity. Only now they are turning out cheap goods to enslave Americans economically here at home. The hypocrisy of those that did not serve has now reached levels of near comic yet tragic absurdity. And our foreign policy today is being guided by political wolves searching for ever more gullible sheep.
As Randy Kuhl's election opponent, I call upon him, today, to join Republican Senator John Warner and other experienced Veterans to declare that Bush's failed strategy in Iraq can no longer be tolerated and evoking the images of a failed foreign intervention that he himself refused to serve in will not be tolerated. It is time for new leadership on the issue of our generation. Randy Kuhl recently stated that he was "skeptical" of the success of the so-called surge, but he voted for it anyway, clearly because that is what George Bush told him to do. If Randy Kuhl is not willing to lead, he and his Tom DeLay legacy members of Congress must step aside. Randy Kuhl's silence clearly signals his support for George Bush's continued failed policies at a time when the 29th Congressional District needs a clear and powerful voice in opposition to the Bush legacy of lost jobs and foreign entanglements.
Finally this week, a new group entitled "Freedom's Watch" started running false ads in my district around the clock. As many of you already know, this group is headed up by former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. Mr. Fleischer is leading the charge against me by running deceptive advertising in my district to protect my rubberstamping opponent, Randy Kuhl. It never ceases to amaze me how when the Republicans get hit up against the ropes, they always manage try connecting 9/11 and Iraq (as you can see below):
During the last election, I lost by 1%, and that was largely because of NRCC spending $1 Million in false, negative advertising attacking me. Now we have a subdivision of the Republican Party spending nearly $1 Million in false, negative advertisements attacking me. That is why I need your help to fund this race. Last year, as with this year, I have refused to take a single cent of Corporate PAC donations. As such, I need to ask you to help me fund this race and answer these deceitful ads with a strong voice.
I hope you will stick around to discuss these topics today and every Sunday from 3-6pm at our liveblog.
-Eric Massa
Commander US Navy (ret.)
Congressional Candidate, NY-29