this is really crazy. after spending years trying to argue that the iraq war is nothing like vietnam, all of a sudden president bush loves making iraq-vietnam comparisons. and yet each time he does, he manages to get them completely wrong.
first, there's bush's sudden interest in graham green. as frank james points out "the quiet american" was critical of america's decision to go to vietnam in the first place, not it's decision to leave. sheesh, did bush really think that the u.s. was leaving vietnam in the 1950s? i realize that the president probably never read the book, but even if you've just seen the movie, or use the wiki page as cliffnotes and look under the "US foreign policy" heading, there's really no mistaking what the story is trying to say.
then there's this bizarro claim that the u.s. withdrawal from vietnam led to the "killing fields" in cambodia. once again, bush has it completely backwards. one of the "most significant factor" in pol pot's rise to power was the american bombing of cambodia, which was part of the u.s.' vietnam war strategy.
and the "the massacres in Cambodia under Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge" didn't start because of the u.s. withdrawal. on the contrary, the american pullout is what ultimately led to the end of pol pot's regime. it was communist vietnam that invaded cambodia, overthrew the khmer rouge and ended the massacres. they didn't do it until after north vietnam won the vietnam war after the u.s. pullout. if the u.s. had stayed in vietnam longer, they wouldn't have been able to prosecute a war against cambodia. odds are, the massacres in cambodia would have continued for a longer period of time had the u.s. not pulled out when it did.
