Iraq Isn't Vietnam, but the Reaction to Iraq Certainly Is

Only a fool would mistake Iraq for Vietnam or even suggest that the two are remotely connected, but Lord knows there's enough of those idiots running around today. Yesterday's anti-war protests in Washington and elsewhere were a real blast from the past:

For her next act, Jane Fonda has entered the war against the Iraq war. At the tail-end of yesterday's on-the-Mall rally, organized by United for Peace and Justice, Fonda stood onstage with the Capitol behind her and addressed the sun-drenched thousands. "I haven't spoken at an antiwar rally in 34 years," she said. But, "Silence is no longer an option."

The first time Fonda, 69, spoke out for peace, the country was soul-deep in the Vietnam War. In the ensuing decades, as the nation has gone through a slew of changes, so has Fonda.

As a young woman, the daughter of actor Henry Fonda was an actress, a feminist and anti-Vietnam War activist. She morphed into a workout maven, post-feminist arm candy for billionaire media magnate Ted Turner, a vocal Christian and an autobiographer. With 2005's "Monster-in-Law," she defibrillated her movie career.
Yesterday, with her daughter, Vanessa Vadim, and two grandchildren nearby, she was again front and center as actress, feminist and opponent of war.

Her life has come full circle.

So Hanoi Jane becomes Baghdad Jane. Yawn. (UPDATE: While looking around the lobby of the Karen and Richard Carpenter Performing Arts Center in Long Beach, I saw a copy of an April 1974 issue of Rolling Stone which had a photo of the Carpenters on it. The top story in that issue was "Jane Fonda's Vietnam Farewell". Some things never change.)

Watching the Senate try and undermine our troops, and listening to House members talk about defunding the forces in the field makes me fear for the future of this country. Will we ever be able to fight a just war again...at least before the generations currently living are dead and gone? It seems that as long as one Vietnam era protester or congressman still lives, America's military will be hamstrung and the safety and security of our country compromised.

Our military establishment was damaged goods for nearly 20 years after the politicians allowed us to lose the war in Vietnam. And let me make it clear that the military didn't lose, the politicians did. The American military has never lost a war, but the politicians have and are working on losing a second one. It took the swift victory in 1991 to restore the military to its rightful place of pride in the eyes of the country.

Should we leave before the job is done, chaos and death will reign in the middle east and we can expect another 20 years of damage to our forces. American politicians will be afraid to act when America is threatened, and it might take a nuclear explosion in an American city to get them to move. By that point it will be too late.

The likely results of the protests today will be thousands or millions dead in the near future. Iraq is not Vietnam or even a cheap facsimile, but the reaction from the wacky left is definitely Vietnam-like, and that's dangerous for all of us.