I remember thinking, back during the 1964 presidential campaign, before I was of draft age, when Barry Goldwater was being portrayed as a warmonger who would blow up the world along with little girls and their daisies, that Lyndon Johnson would be getting us deep into war in Vietnam. I had no idea how bad it would be, but if peace comes through strength, I figured Johnson would be getting us into war. He would of necessity have to do the things he was accusing Goldwater of wanting to do.
I’m definitely having a sense of deja vu this summer, 44 years later. I’m no fan of George Bush’s warmongering, but Barak Obama seems to be following in the same rut that Lyndon Johnson made. From an article by Bret Stefens in the WSJ:
Now Mr. Obama tells us that the 16-month timeline is contingent on (1) “[making] sure that our troops are safe and that Iraq is stable” (my emphasis), and (2) the opinion of “the commanders on the ground.” Also in question is the size of the “residual force” that the Illinois senator envisions for Iraq after the bulk of U.S. forces is withdrawn. Will it be an embassy guard, plus some military advisers and special-ops forces? Or, as suggested in a March paper by Colin H. Kahl, who runs Mr. Obama’s working group on Iraq, an “overwatch force” of between 60,000 and 80,000 soldiers?