Forward Observer: Days of Future Past

The senators of yesteryear who demanded that President Lyndon Johnson change his Vietnam War policy seem to be reincarnated, at least in spirit, in the leaders of the ongoing congressional effort to force President Bush to change his Iraq policy.

The themes, and often the words, of war critics are strikingly similar.

If past is prologue, Bush with his veto power will continue to have the upper hand in the near term but will continue to lose political ground in the long term unless and until he or his successor dramatically shifts the current U. S. posture in Iraq.

Congressional dissent on the Vietnam War broke out big time in 1967 but did not lead to a shut-off of funds and a ban on further military operations until 1973.

This big gap between congressional protest and binding action might be narrowed this time around if the insurgents launch their equivalent of Vietnam's Tet offensive in Iraq or if Bush undercuts his war critics by announcing this fall that Gen. David Petraeus, the Gen. William Westmoreland of Iraq, has deemed it safe to start redeploying and withdrawing some American troops from Iraq.

Polls also might persuade enough Republican senators that their political survival depends on legislating a date certain for starting the withdrawal of our troops from Iraq.

None of the above seems likely to happen soon enough to give Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., and his allies the votes they need this week to force the president's hand on withdrawal dates and other Iraqi war issues.

But time is not on the side of Bush and his backers. The same congressional arguments that pushed President Richard Nixon into changing President Johnson's Vietnam policy and handing the war over to the South Vietnamese under "Vietnamization" are gaining strength with voters today, as evidenced by last year's election results.

It is indeed eerie to read what former Sen. George McGovern, D-S.D., said on the Senate floor in 1967 about the Vietnam War and then hear many of his arguments, and even some of his words, being repeated today on the Senate and House floors in regard to Iraq by many Democrats and a growing number of Republicans.

Here are some examples of McGovern's criticism in an April 25, 1967, speech entitled "The Lessons of Vietnam:"

Foolish war: "Our deepening involvement in Vietnam represents the most tragic diplomatic and moral failure in our national experience ... There was no American interest, no issue of political freedom, no moral imperative that called for sending our troops and bombers into Vietnam.

We fight in Vietnam not for any enduring objective; rather, we fight because of a highly questionable notion that this is the only honorable course. Implicit in our Vietnam involvement is an assumption that we may be ordained to settle the struggles and determine the ideology of the people of Asia. Congress must never again surrender its power under our constitutional system by permitting an ill-advised, undeclared war of this kind."

Congress duped: "Senators must bear a portion of the blame for the drift of our policy in Vietnam for we have been slow to speak clearly or even to ask hard questions about obvious contradictions, poor intelligence and false prophecies involving the highest officials of our government. Our policymakers have frequently misled the American public, the result being a serious loss of credibility for the U. S. government. "

Stay the course: "It is a strange piece of logic indeed which holds that once committed to error we must compound the error by more of the same medicine to salvage the original mistake."

Sapping global strength: "The United States is a world power with commitments around the globe. To sacrifice our [strength] for one tiny section of the world where the situation is so complex and confusing seems to me to be an act of folly."

Guns vs. butter: "We are wasting human and material resources needed for the revitalization of our society."

Moral standing: "We are weakening America's moral position and beclouding American idealism."

McGovern was trounced by Nixon in the 1972 presidential race but the Vietnam War backlash impelled Nixon to claim falsely during the campaign that he had a secret plan for ending the war.

Vietnamization, which promised American troop withdrawals, together with Nixon opening peace talks with the enemy kept Congress at bay until 1973, when the House and Senate both passed a bill banning further bombing of Cambodia.

Nixon vetoed the bill.

The House, despite having passed the bill 284-96 on May 10, 1973, could not muster the two-thirds vote needed to override Nixon's veto.

Such is the clout of the president when it comes to deciding who should run a war, even an unpopular one.

But Nixon passed the word he would sign a bill that forbade the bombing of Cambodia as of Aug. 15, 1973. Congress did pass such a bill and Nixon signed it.

That denouement to the Vietnam War looks to be in for a faster-paced revival as Congress, with different actors, follows much the same script in trying to assert itself on Iraq.