Bush’s War of False Pretenses

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/15/3856/

Bush’s War of False Pretenses
by Derrick Z. Jackson

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We are 4 1/2 years into this war, and the Bush administration has not sorted out what we have done. Bush, by citing isolated examples of “how our strategy is working” and deluding himself about “the progress I have reported tonight,” is no different than when General William Westmoreland told the National Press Club about Vietnam War in 1967, “I am absolutely certain that where as in 1965 the enemy was winning, today he is certainly losing.”

Just like Bush, citing the reopening of schools, Westmoreland boasted that the United States “saw a civilian government installed, stabilized prices, opened roads and canals.”

Westmoreland’s assessment led President Johnson to declare three months later in a press conference, “so far as changing our basic strategy, the answer would be no. We see nothing that would require any change of great consequence. I see nothing in the developments that would indicate that the evaluation that I have had of this situation throughout the month should be changed.”

Bush, seeing no need for major changes other than his recent escalation, said Thursday, “Our troops in Iraq are performing brilliantly. Along with Iraqi forces, they have captured or killed an average of more than 1,500 enemy fighters per month since January.”

That is no different than Johnson bragging to the media in February of 1968 that 10,000 communist fighters were killed and 2,300 detained in the latest battles, compared to only 249 US fatalities. “I can count,” Johnson said. “. . . is that a great enemy victory?”

Johnson won the body count and lost the war. Bush has yet to see that his war is down for the count.