Let's go back in time...it's 1967 and
headlines back then read:US Airforce intensifies bombing of North Vietnam . . . U.S. plans to start missile net... 1967 Pan Am Games... 13 US helicopters are shot down in Vietnam... Writer and historian Bernard B. Fall is killed by a Viet Cong... Military Coup in Greece... Six Day War... Egyptians blockade Straits of Tiran... Israeli Air Force launched a pre-emptive strike... Large Scale War Protest Begins... Johnson meets Kosygin...
WOW, 1967 was a year for protests and military actions! Does any of this sound familiar? If you were to ad word "Iraq" in with any of these headlines, it would be something you might hear today.
Let's try another one: U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote (NYT 9/4/1967) If we replaced Vietnam with Iraq it would read: U.S. Encouraged by Iraq Vote, (CNN 1/30/2005) Funny how history repeats itself. The point I'm trying to get is our Iraq war is another Vietnam. We are viewing it same way and our government hopes and desires are same. Many headlines from 1967 can be "reused" as headlines today. Below is entire headline and story from Sept. 4th, 1967...
Don't forget to add word Iraq in place of Vietnam then you decide-Ken
U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote : Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong Terror
by Peter Grose, Special to New York Times (9/4/1967)
WASHINGTON, Sept. 3-- United States officials were surprised and heartened today at size of turnout in South Vietnam's presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt voting.
According to reports from Saigon, 83 per cent of 5.85 million registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked reprisals threatened by Vietcong.
The size of popular vote and inability of Vietcong to destroy election machinery were two salient facts in a preliminary assessment of nation election based on incomplete returns reaching here.
Pending more detailed reports, neither State Department nor White House would comment on balloting or victory of military candidates, Lieut. Gen. Nguyen Van Thieu, who was running for president, and Premier Nguyen Cao Ky, candidate for vice president. A successful election has long been seen as keystone in President Johnson's policy of encouraging growth of constitutional processes in South Vietnam. The election was culmination of a constitutional development that began in January, 1966, to which President Johnson gave his personal commitment when he met Premier Ky and General Thieu, chief of state, in Honolulu in February.
