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Iraq is No Vietnam

(New York Times) - Thomas L. Friedman There is this notion being peddled by Europeans, the Arab press, and the antiwar left that "Iraq" is just Arabic for Vietnam, and we should expect these kinds of attacks from Iraqis wanting to "liberate" their country from "U.S. occupation." Hogwash. The people who mounted the attacks on the Red Cross are not the Iraqi Vietcong. They are the Iraqi Khmer Rouge - a murderous band of Saddam loyalists and al-Qaeda nihilists, who are not killing us so Iraqis can rule themselves. They are killing us so they can rule Iraqis. The Baathists and Arab dictators are opposing the U.S. in Iraq because they understand that U.S. power is not being used in Iraq for oil, or imperialism, or to shore up a corrupt status quo, as it was in Vietnam. They understand that this is the most radical-liberal revolutionary war the U.S. has ever launched - a war of choice to install some democracy in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world.
2003-10-30 00:00:00
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