Bush Administration, Peace Movement Learned Very Different Lessons from Vietnam War

Interview with Marcus Raskin, co-founder of the Institute for Policy Studies, conducted by Scott Harris

With the recent escalation of violence by insurgents in Iraq that includes daily attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces, car bombings and kidnappings, the optimistic picture recently painted by White House and Pentagon officials of diminishing violence, stability and a short term reduction in the number of American occupation troops seems ever more implausible. Meanwhile, nations such as Italy and the Ukraine that had initially deployed soldiers to support the Bush administration's occupation of Iraq are now steadily withdrawing.

While differences outnumber similarities between the Iraq war and the U.S. war in Vietnam, there are a growing number of observers who are concerned that the Bush administration may be making the same critical mistakes that led to the American defeat and withdrawal from South Vietnam 30 years ago. Critics and supporters of Washington's war in Southeast Asia, haunted by the deaths of 58,000 American troops and more than a million Vietnamese, have drawn very different lessons from the Vietnam conflict.

Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with Marcus Raskin, co-founder of the Institute for Policy Studies in 1963, and a vocal opponent of the Vietnam war and military draft. Raskin assesses the current peace movement's demand for a rapid U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and the lessons he believes should have been learned in Vietnam.

Contact the Institute for Policy Studies by calling (202) 234-9382 or visit their website at www.ips-dc.org. Raskin and Carl Lavan are the editors of a new book titled, "In Democracy's Shadow: The Secret World of National Security."

"The Unreported Vietnam-Iraq Parallel," by Danny Schechter, CommonDreams.org, May 1, 2005

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