GARNER ON VIETNAM

Here is the quote on Vietnam, from the New York Times in a profile on Garner:

"It took too long," he said. "We should have taken the war north instead of waiting in the south. Just like here. If President Bush had been president, we would have won."

This is not an encouraging sign from the man whom Bush has entrusted to direct what is probably the most important non-military foreign policy initiative in the post Cold War period. To be fair, there is a lot to say about the article as a whole; Garner is willing to criticize the strategic hamlet program (thank God! Thank God!). Still, if what Garner has learned from Vietnam (and after) is that it was a lack of strong leadership that led to the failures in Vietnam, I'm afraid that I don't have a heck of a lot of confidence in what sorts of leadership decisions he's likely to make in his current position.

Bush could have won the Vietnam war? Give me a whopping break.

A while back I made the (easy) prediction that the Vietnam war would be reappropriated in new ways; I hadn't quite expected Garner's argument, though. I'm not sure if I should be more depressed and alarmed than I was when I wrote those lines.

AND MORE: Garner's quote hasn't really attracted much attention, although WaPo's "In the Loop" made it their "quote of the day" yesterday.

Let's review the facts here. Bush has picked an ex-general to head an interim government in Iraq. This general believes, perhaps predictably, that the U.S. should just have invaded North Vietnam and that this would have meant victory for our side. He believes that the problem in Vietnam was faulty executive leadership. He believes that Bush could have won the Vietnam war by sending American troops into Hanoi, after more "shock and awe" than Rolling Thunder, apparently, and then. . .what? Turning over the government to the Vietnamese people in 90 days? Looking for secret caches of AK-47s? Installing offensive South Vietnamese kleptocrats as rulers of the whole country?

AAAAAAAAHHHH!