Every White House problem is a new Watergate.

Bush is Nixon.

Iraq is Vietnam.

LiveEarth is Woodstock.

Its hard to appreciate what anyone is saying when every political, cultural and legal reference is centered around the last 30-40 years.

Think of where this is going. Either the Gen Xers are going to have to embrace your tags and talk to our grandkids in 40 years about how Bush was our generation's Nixon and whatever scandal got him was our Watergate moment or, more than likely, we'll just dismiss it because we have had a belly full of your Nixonian nostalgia.

You think anyone who is around 35 gives a rat's ass about Nixon or Watergate? We were 5 when he left office! You are trivializing Bush's troubled legacy and historical impact by blending him with your self centered scope of history.

Maybe its just the easiest comparison but for pete's sake someone compare him to Taylor or Polk or Taft just once.

notimeforbackup:

Maybe its just the easiest comparison but for pete's sake someone compare him to Taylor or Polk or Taft just once.

who are they?

I see some validity in your point, but face it, most of the commentators are boomers and that is our point of reference -- much in the same way that our parents continually referred to the Depression or WWII.

On the other hand, the Iraq/Vietnam and Bush/Nixon parallels are just to fucking spooky to ignore.

Thomas Paine:

On the other hand, the Iraq/Vietnam and Bush/Nixon parallels are just to fucking spooky to ignore.

The difficulty is that for anyone with an objective view of history, the "parallels" don't seem to exist at all. What the Baby Boomers think and feel about the issues of the modern day is colored by a very unusual and subjective experience the rest of us don't share.

It's no accident that the Baby Boomers are regarded with such disdain by the other population groups - they seem to come from a completely different reality and don't even realize it.

Thomas Paine:

On the other hand, the Iraq/Vietnam and Bush/Nixon parallels are just to fucking spooky to ignore.

The difficulty is that for anyone with an objective view of history, the "parallels" don't seem to exist at all. What the Baby Boomers think and feel about the issues of the modern day is colored by a very unusual and subjective experience the rest of us don't share.

It's no accident that the Baby Boomers are regarded with such disdain by the other population groups - they seem to come from a completely different reality and don't even realize it.

Sorry that I lack your objective view of history, but you do not see parallels between Vietnam and Iraq? Pulled into a war on false pretenses, the "fight them there so we don't have to fight them here" arguements, the assertions that questioning the war represents disloyalty to the country and lack of respect for our troops, the lack of a clear military objective or strategy........?

I'll take the middle road: As a GenXer myself (I am 37), I too am completely sick of the overwhelming influence of Boomers on society as a whole (50 is the new 30! We're too young/cool to "retire", etc.). Their (often) inability to grow up has resulted in us getting presidents like Clinton and Bush (both very childish men in various ways). But as a student of history, I also appreciate the parallels of the Nixon/Watergate/Vietnam years to today's fiasco of an administration/the war in Iraq. Makes perfect sense considering how many cabinet members were members of the Nixon administration. We definitely have a duty to consider the history and how we can learn from it (so as not to be destined to repeat it--blah blah). We may be learning that lesson too late in this case, however.

You think anyone who is around 35 gives a rat's ass about Nixon or Watergate? We were 5 when he left office! You are trivializing Bush's troubled legacy and historical impact by blending him with your self centered scope of history.

Thank you for the helpful critique. The Boomer "generation" appreciates knowing that some of the historic events that occured as we were in our teens and twenties--Vietnam; ending the draft; getting the voting age reduced to 18 (you're welcome); the assassinations of JFK, RFK, MLK Jr; the Civil Rights Movement; women's fight for economic and social equality; and even the Watergate fiasco--are insignificant to other people. It's helpful to know. BTW, since you are hungry for a different comparison, I would be very happy to hear how you think Bush stacks up next Taylor or Polk or Taft...and especially McKinley.

(Slightly OT: How can a group that spans 18 years (1946 to 1964) be a "generation" anyway? Who came up with that? We didn't -- must have been those busy little rabbits who conceived us. I know Boomers who are the parents of Boomers. Go figure!)

Pulled into a war on false pretenses,

Let's compare wars, shall we? In the Vietnam War, the cassus belli was the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Which was similar to the Spanish-American War (Remember the Maine!) and World War I (Lusitania), and completely different from the War in Iraq.

A better analogy for the War in Iraq would be the invasion of Tripoli by the U.S. Marines.

the "fight them there so we don't have to fight them here" arguements,

Like the ones used in every other war the U.S. has fought since 1812?

the assertions that questioning the war represents disloyalty to the country

A universal trait of wars.

and lack of respect for our troops,

I don't see any particular lack of respect for our troops amongst the general population. The fact that John Kerry might think our troops dumb isn't any different than the fact that Eugene Debs thought much the same thing back during World War I.

the lack of a clear military objective or strategy........?

How is this any different from any other war? FDR didn't wake up on December 8th with a fully developed plan for victory in World War II. He just went ahead and declared war, confident he'd figure it out as he went along.

You can force any analogy you like. But the conflict in Iraq isn't particularly amenable to comparison with Vietnam - they are enormously different cultures with an incredibly different political and military situation.

OK how about the similarity of attempting to use the military in a situation where, for the most part, we are not fighting against a military, supporting a "government" that only exists because we propped them up, supposedly for the benefit of people who mostly wish we would get the fuck out.

Yes, there is a good comparison between the Gulf of Tonkin, the Maine and the Lusitania -- and all have a great deal of similarity with the alleged implication of Iraq in 9/11 as well as the claimed WMDs. So, if your point is that there are other parallels that could also have been drawn, yeah you are right, but since not many people can really relate to how we got into the Spanish-American war, Vietnam seems a more meaningful comparison.

There is no conceivable way to achieve a military victory in Iraq because it is not a military problem -- much like Vietnam. So, just like in Vietnam, there is no conceivable way we can win, or even any idea of what "winning" might involve. Can you spell "quagmire?"

True, FDR did not know exactly how he would defeat Germany and Japan, but he did know he would be fighting against German and Japanese military forces. It was reasonable to assume that it was gonna take military force to defeat them.

As for lack of respect for troops, I am not suggesting that anyone (at least not significant numbers) does -- but that any one not supporting the president's position is accused of doing that.

The Viet Cong seems like it was a much more unified political and military force than the opposition we face in Iraq. As we often here, we're facing a variety of different factions and militias of varying size who also happen to be at war with one antoher.

The absence of the Cold War backdrop of world wide geopolitical standoff between two blocks, also seems a substantial dissimilarity. I've seen a lot of people try and stuff the current situation into Cold War terms - but the irony is that most of the governments who fall on the "other" side of the perceived divide actually experience political Islamism as a threatening domestic force. It'd be as if the Soviet Union were actually a fascist state with liberal economic policies, who just happened to face a very dangerous communist insurgency.

Sure, there are similarities, if you draw your analogies closely enough. I tend to think we make too many careless Vietnam analogies, and that they muddy our discourse and thinking in a way that makes us less effective and powerful in the world.

No doubt that there was more cohesive opposition in Vietnam -- the NVA and the Viet Cong were at least fighting for the same cause and probably had extensive coordination, at least at policy levels.

The bigger parallel I was drawing in that regard is that to a large extent, much of the battle was not with regular, uniformed military forces, but rather with insurgents who blended into the very people we were supposed to be fighting for, such that the harder we fought, the more likely we were to be killing civilians and thus enhancing the support of our enemies.

I absolutely agree that one can draw too many parallels between Vietnam and Iraq, but at the same time, those of us who lived through the experience of Vietnam are gun shy about getting into another no win situation.

And, at the risk of being accused of drawing another boomer comparison, it does seem to me that radical Islam has in many ways assumed the role that international communism had throughout the cold war -- the boogieman that should frighten us into giving up our traditional freedoms in favor of security.

I take the bait......

For an interesting historical comparison, I suggest reading the new book by Lynne Olson called "Troublesome Young Men." It is about the Tory politicians in England who helped get Churchill into office as PM in 1940.

We all know about the "appeasment was bad" aspect of that era. But, the back stories make for interesting reading; how Baldwin's and Chamberlain's governments manipulated the press, stiffled dissent, made policy based on belief rather than facts, and marginalized the Parliment and the Cabinet.

The result of that "policy" was disasterous. Bush thinks of himself as Churchill, but he really is Chamberlain. Read the book.

I am an old boomer.

I don't see why we need to compare Bush to anything. He is an unmitigated disaster, it doesn't matter what else he is like. Nixon can't hold a candle to him. Nor anyone else either.

We ought to try to figure out how to fix this mess instead of worrying about what else it is like.

ceased to exist after the Tet in Jan 1968. The war went on for another 5 years with their influence being minimal and the NVA being more so. The analysis is not true as you present it.

With the breakup of the Ottoman Empire after WWI, the British created a new country called Iraq. In it they combined three distinct groups; Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites. In comparison this is three separate countries being thrown together without Turkish influence. Vietnam existed as a country for centuries with Buddhist parts and Mountain Tribes and eventually Catholics. Hardly the same.

Today's situation is a country coming apart at the seams as Saddam became the Turkish influence, who didn't care, and we are governed under different ideologies. God forbid we are Saddam in governing scope although many of ar actions are similar.

The Vietnam analogy comes to bear when we intrude in areas we truly can not influence. We could not influence Vietnam and we can not influence Iraq. We may own the land; but, we do not own the people.