qWagmire

In this excellent post, Glenn Greenwald lists a number of statements made by political and military leaders during the 10 years between 1965-1975 in the war in Vietnam. Finding similarities between these and today's statements is an exercise left up to the reader. Some of them are scary in their ability to conjure reverse deja vu.

VICE PRESIDENT HUBERT HUMPHREY, October 1967:

And may I say that despite public opinion polls -- none of which may I say have ever been friendly toward a nation's commitment in battle -- despite criticism, despite understandable impatience, we mean to stick it out, until aggression is turned back and until a just and honorable peace can be achieved, until the job is done.

Gen. William Westmoreland, March, 1968:

In 1968 a new phase is now starting. We have reached an important point when the end begins to come into view.

And for truly bone-chilling recognizability, we come to this one:

President Nixon, May 5, 1969:

We can have honest debate about whether we should have entered the war. We can have honest debate about the past conduct of the war. But the urgent question today is what to do now that we are there, not whether we should have entered on this course, but what is required of us today.

Sound familiar?

This all ties in to a larger thought I've had for quite some time. I wrote a long essay about it out by hand on a plane flight this summer, but have never had time to really polish it up since then. But it has occured to me for some time that achieving a Vietnam-like quagmire is the whole POINT of this war, not just a sadly-foreseeable consequence. More on that soon.