Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Many of these same individuals have continued to reiterate how important it was to win in Vietnam to the present day, including Bush.  They insist that if America had been more vigilant and those cursed "peacemongers" had not been so numerous and persistent that the job could have been completed and Asian Communism could have been suppressed.

The fear that was stated and restated during the period was that, echoing thoughts concerning World War Two, which was used as an analogy, "If we don't stop them here we will have to stop them at our shores!"

There was a pervasive concern that if Ho Chi Minh's North Vietnamese army was not repulsed that America would be invaded by way of San Francisco.

The absurd and thoroughly unrealistic non-analogous analogy cited was that Communist China was then a nation of better than 1 billion strong.  Considering that they were more numerous than the American citizenry they could defeat us through sheer raw numbers.

The absurdity was carried further by stating that President Harry Truman committed one of the most horrific errors in world history by not allowing General Douglas MacArthur to pursue North Korean and Red Chinese troops across the Yalu River and into China itself.  

To have taken this step would have eliminated the necessity of facing off against Asian Communism in any future form.

First of all, MacArthur conceded on numerous occasions after he had been recalled by Truman from his Korean War command that the U.S. could not win a ground war in Southeast Asia.

What therefore became so troubling about the Korean War was that MacArthur wanted to even out the odds by having the U.S. use its nuclear arsenal.  For one thing Korea was a limited action designed to stop North Korea from invading and occupying its neighbor to the south.  

The United Nations was not about to sanction use of nuclear weapons as the U.S. sought to expand the war, aware that the Soviet Union under its then dictator Joseph Stalin also possessed a nuclear arsenal of his own, albeit less developed than that of America.

Another point that has been dodged by right wing historical revisionists is that MacArthur was caught flat-footed when his supporters would have us believe that he was in hot pursuit of the enemy with victory in feasible sight.  

In reality it was General Matthew Ridgway who became the unsung hero of the war as MacArthur's replacement, maneuvering troops out of harm's way and eventually restoring the status quo of South Korea back in charge of its own destiny and the northern advance repulsed.

Vietnam was always separable from the Korean War, as exemplified by the fact that Ho Chi Minh's father and others like him had years earlier sought independence from French influence.  

They sought an independent Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh, who expressed an admiration for George Washington, at one juncture, sought U.S. help, seeking to analogize his fight against the French alongside America's war of independence against the British.

While a ground war fought by U.S. troops on the Chinese mainland would be, as stated by MacArthur and so many others, a ponderous prospect, a different yardstick would apply should Asian Communism seek to overcome the United States.  

Can one seriously envision hordes of Asians invading America by sea?

Haven't we heard somewhere from these same right wing forces so fearful of Asian Communism that we possess nuclear weapons?  Would they be abandoned?  

Does America possess an Air Force and a Navy?  Would they be abandoned during such an attack by sea culminated by storming San Francisco?

This question should be asked of the neocons who currently seek to invade Iran after arguing and prevailing in launching war in Iraq:  

Where were the vigilant future neocons when Vietnam beckoned?

George W. Bush snuck into the Texas Air National Guard after Poppy Bush used mighty influence that allowed him to hop scotch the normal selection process.  Yes, and what about all those college deferments?  

The very neocons who cheered on the Vietnam War formed cheering sections via the college deferment process.

That means Dick Cheney, Bill Kristol, Karl Rove, Richard Perle and others.

If the Vietnam War carried the necessity of repulsing Asian Communism on the shores of San Francisco then were you staunch future neocon titans not appeasers for not grabbing a rifle and fighting the Viet Cong in the jungles of Southeast Asia?

Is this just one more area where the neocon right is guilty of a double standard and rank hypocrisy?