Iraq "Study Group" Report=="Decent Interval"

Frank Snepp wrote a book so embarrassing to the war criminals responsible for the long withdrawal from Vietnam that he was persecuted to keep his silence as no American before him. When I saw him speak in the 1980s, he explained how every public appearance and every written word by him was subject to preapproval by the CIA censors, and since then the Supreme Court decision that crushed his right to free speech has been an instrument used to scissor away at our protections under the First Amendment by every president since, including Clinton. Power is always trying to constrict your freedoms--Democrats and Republicans alike, although the Repugs are much more determined. You can imagine the glee with which Alberto "Torture Boy" Gonzalez has clutched this decision in his sweaty little hand on his trips to Congress.

Here's a quote from Snepp himself that is going to chill you to the bone:

The final unraveling began two years before with the ceasefire negotiated by White House National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger. It got the last of the American troops out of South Vietnam, but left 140,000 North Vietnamese forces in the south. They wouldn’t get out because we hadn’t beaten them. And now they turned on the Saigon government itself…a government corrupt, inefficient, riddled with Communist spies, possibly as many as fourteen thousand of them according to intelligence estimates. A government about as solid and durable as Swiss cheese.

Substitute "Stephen Hadley" for "Henry Kissinger," "Iraq" for "South Vietnam," "Baghdad" for "Saigon," "sectarian militias" for "North Vietnamese" and "terrorist" for "Communist" and you've got a nice deja vu thing going.

The term "decent interval" specifies the time required by an abandoned ally (or puppet, depending on your view) to stand before collapsing so that the blame for the fiasco can be redirected from the Americans responsible. In Vietnam it was Kissinger and Nixon--Kissinger was terribly worried about his legacy, more than the lives of Americans or Vietnamese. In Iraq...well, you know the cast of characters, and it even includes the ghostly Henry Kissinger who has been advising Bush on how to dodge responsibility. Hank is likely finding Chimpie a very poor student, however. Nixon, for all his criminality, was a brilliant man. Take away the intelligence and what you're left with is...you get the picture. So if it's any consolation, and it won't be to the families of all who've died in this illegal war, Chimpie is going to go down with this war like Ahab went down with Moby Dick, and for the same reason--fanaticism.

You know, we really ought to elect presidents who don't disdain history. I'll let the final word be Snepp's.

The last CIA message from the Embassy declared: Let’s hope we do not repeat history. This is Saigon station signing off.