The Vietnam Syndrome

Politics used to “stop at the water’s edge.” Now, the whole world is merely a plaything for spin-meisters and domestic political hacks, trying to score points and win the next election with no regard to the damage that they do. This is the true legacy of Vietnam[*1] :

My worry is that the objectives of Iraq — as well as our strategy for the larger Middle East — may not fall within a time horizon that can outlast the inflammation of public outcry due to Vietnam Syndrome. Tremendous political pressures reinforced by negative perceptions are building against the Administration. We should wonder whether these are the symptoms of a US public that receives a steady diet of colored information and news of dead soldiers; but gets less information about military and political gains. For example, the fruits of democratization are routinely downplayed. Good news is attenuated, or buried on page 15.

There are a few who oppose the Iraqi experiment out of conscience. I think that they are wrong, but I respect their stand. The great majority of the anti-war forces (including many in the media) are cynically manipulating the news cycle to produce the very “quagmire” that they decry. Those people do not care about Iraq, do not really care about America, either. All they care about is winning the next election for “their side.”

Has the Bush Administration badly fumbled the public relations war? Absolutely. And history may yet judge them harshly for it. But if as I believe, the confrontation between militant Islam and western civilization is the next major world Crisis, then history will judge the anti-war forces even more harshly. That is, if western civilization manages to prevail. If militant Islam wins, then the anti-war people will simply get in line for the beheadings with the rest of us, and the world will plunge into a Dark Age the likes of which we have not seen since before the Romulus and Remus founded Rome.