If one of those classic blunders is never to get involved in a land war in Asia, then only slightly less known is this: Never COMPARE your own land war to a land war in Asia.
I mean, lord almighty, George, this is just basic debating tactics. You avoid negative associations. It doesn’t matter that you’re trying to sell the notion that, if we pull out of Iraq, then people will die as happened in Vietnam. (Let us even put aside that people are already dying, and will continue to do so whether we’re there or not, the only difference being that if we’re there then we’re the ones dying. And if you’d been so dámņëd concerned about people’s lives, maybe you’d actually have paid attention to everybody who was trying to point out how screwed up Iraq was going to become BEFORE you got us there.)
The problem is that if you mention Iraq and Vietnam in the same breath, the details and shadings of your point will fall away. Days later, all that most people are going to remember is Iraq being equated with Vietnam. And that is a Very Bad Thing as far as you’re concerned. You don’t WANT people making that association. It’s the very association that you and your people have been trying to AVOID people making.
And now you’ve sent them right to it.
In the words of a famous Ghostbuster when faced with his partner’s faulty strategy that unleashed a gigantic monster upon them: “Good thinking, Ray.”
PAD
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