Did I mention that the name of this blog is sociological?

It's a bit of an obsession of mine, the way the right keeps repeating, with regard to the Vietnam War, that up was down, black was white, and the sun sets in the east instead of the west.

Last month, for example, I pointed out how the Washington Times circulated a made-up quote from North Vietnam's General Giap that America was about to win the war until Congress stabbed the military in the back. [1]

I guess they don't read this blog. This month, they did it again. [2]

Why does it matter? Because the professional conservatives rely on spreading these fairy tales among their followers in order to keep the Iraq War going forever. Indeed, looking for my previous Giap post, I found a 2005 letter-writer to our own site doing that very thing [3] in response to a piece by Robert Dreyfuss:

There are so many inaccuracies in your article, it's hard to know where to start. Tet was not a military defeat. It did decimate the Viet Cong as an effective fighting force. Uncle Walter helped convince the public the war was lost. Even General Giap admitted that the north was losing until the anti-war crowd changed American opinion.

Iraq is no Vietnam. The populace is vastly more supportive than the Vietnamese were. The terrorists are all from outside the country, not a large number of the local population. The Iraqi police and military are now conducting many of their own operations. The "insurgents" that are talking to the coalition are former Baathists who see that an overthrow of the current government doesn't have any popular support. The coalition is not talking to the foreign-born terrorists.

You may want a set exit strategy, but I think you'll find this president will only accept the destruction of the terrorists as the acceptable exit plan. Better to have them attracted like flies to the sandpaper of Iraq, than getting visas to come here and stage attacks on our streets.

David Henry

Without its lies to rely on, the conservative political movement is nothing.