I expect better from Mr. Hitchens. He got several facts wrong and his examples are in opposition to his points.

Hitchens brings his analysis to the Iraq like Vietnam debate. While historically interesting and well-written, this is ultimately a debate that can't be won and is irrelevant to boot.

Hitchens, for most of the piece, ignores Bush's ill-made point. It's almost as though Hitchens didn't even listen to the speech. Bush wasn't drawing any analogies between the wars, but instead to the prospects for catastrophe in the aftermath of withdrawal from Iraq having likely similarities to the aftermath of withdrawal from Vietnam. This of course misses the real blunder: in both cases America, by entering into ill conceived wars with no exit strategy, shot itself in the foot, wounded hundreds of thousands of innocents in the process and lost many brave soldiers to the political egos of its leaders.

This contains an impressive list of factual contrasting comparisons; but somehow, it was not a fascinating story. I could recommend it as only 85% worthy.

Rhetoric and actions: Bush withdrew from Viet Nam before he even went there; now he claims the rest of the country should have stayed there? This story is interesting, but as I read it, it seems to need it's own fact-checking review.

The choice and presentation of facts is so uneven as to be nearly useless. Yes, there are some interesting facts, but the many that are not mentioned are just as interesting, if not more so.

The list of comparisons was commendable, but no where does Mr. Hitchens address our real present problem namely how to get out of Irag and to persuade Mr. Bush not to go before the public with yet another ill conceived idea of what is right and try to make comparisons.

A well-written and engaging piece by a pro-Iraq War pundit, listing the differences between Iraq and Viet Nam. One major point is Viet Nam was fighting to keep itself from being split up, whereas Hitchens implies our presence in Iraq is preventing Iraq from splitting into chaos. I wouldn't go as far as Hitchens when he rewrites history to claim that the Viet Namese fought the Khmer Rouge "on our behalf" - the U.S. were the prime international backers of that genocidal regime! Of course as a pro-warrior Hitchens ignores the elementary fact that there would be no chaos in Iraq, nor in Viet Nam, except for the wars of aggression that the U.S. has carried out in both places, much to the resentment of the locals. Sow the wind, ... More »

Hitchens can still write circles around most US journalists, but he has become quite sloppy. He begins with his favorite subject, his loathing for cheap religiosity, and then gets to the point, which is his own implied self-justification for supporting the Iraq conflict after having protested against Vietnam. In the process he virtually ignores Bush's admittedly idiotic and counterfactual points. Neither Bush nor Hitchens is particularly persuasive here.

It should be noted that George W. Bush joined the only Air National Guard unit which served in Vietnam, and trained as a fighter pilot. The F-102 was not sent to Vietnam. As Vietnam wound down, combat experienced pilots returned to the US, and displaced the non-combat experienced F-102 pilots, as the F-102 was being phased out. By comparison, John F. Kerry joined a Navy unit which escorted deep water vessels, and after he was assigned, was redirected to riverine warfare. My notion is that signing up is the brave part, and the rest is luck and follow through. I suggest that the Guardian do a quick Google search on "boat People" and "re-education camp". Of course that is the kind of thing that the Guardian supports as normal. To ... More »