Not This Time
EDITORIAL Not This Time No one knows the tragic story of America in Vietnam better than Jim Webb, first as a Marine, then as a writer. So the newly elected Democratic senator from Virginia—a...
...In Vietnam, the target was the government of President Thieu...
...If resolutions fail to force President Bush to begin winding down the war, Senator Joe Biden promises the Senate will take stronger measures...
...Such a robot could destroy a satellite every bit as effectively as an explosive would...
...I do not support cutting funding for American troops, but I do support cutting funding for Iraqi forces if the Iraqi government does not meet set conditions," she said two weeks ago...
...More important, the space shot hit home in the editorial offices of the New York Times...
...If Petraeus achieves a breakthrough in pacifying Baghdad and then in controlling insurgent-dominated Anbar province, the war opponents must stand down...
...And the painful lesson of Vietnam applies in Iraq: Don't give up when victory is at hand...
...Now in Iraq, Petraeus has as good a chance of success, starting with the pacification of Baghdad, as Abrams had...
...The precision was impressive—and frightening in its strategic cunning...
...In Vietnam, it came in 1974, after American combat troops had been withdrawn, but with the United States still supporting and funding the South Vietnamese government...
...Bush can be expected to hold firm in his pursuit of victory in Iraq...
...Fred Barnes, for the Editors China Hits Its Target . . . And it's on West 43rd Street...
...Indeed, they might, for certain parallels between Iraq and Vietnam are uncanny...
...The way to counter China or any other potentially belligerent space power is through an arms control treaty...
...In Iraq, it's the elected government of Prime Minister Maliki...
...Gary Samore of the Council on Foreign Relations told the Times, "It puts pressure on the U.S...
...The editorial claimed it had destroyed a retired "communications satellite...
...by James Oberg Two weeks ago, high above eastern Asia, a Chinese missile unerringly hunted down and struck its target...
...In the Vietnam era, congressional critics passed limits on funding...
...But in Iraq, there's time to halt it...
...Step five is the last resort of war opponents: a fund cutoff over the protests of the president...
...In its January 20 editorial, the Times adopted a tone of sweet reason: "Surely it would make military and diplomatic sense," the editors urged, "to seek to ban all tests and any use of antisatel-lite weapons...
...And they may have their way, whatever Petraeus accomplishes...
...agreed: "It is urgent that President Bush move to guarantee...
...In the aftermath of the secretive Chinese test and official obfuscation at all levels of the Beijing regime, any such hope is as shattered as the ill-fated Fengyun weather satellite...
...Iraq "is not a parallel situation...
...Step six: the collapse...
...It called for taking and holding the villages and hamlets of South Vietnam...
...What's striking is how much the congressional majority then resembles today's antiwar coalition, mostly Democrats but with more than a handful of Republicans...
...Lengthy discussions on the definition issue might impede reaching a political consensus on the prevention of the weaponization of and an arms race in outer space...
...The warhead flown on January 12 had no explosives, and its guidance package probably shared many—if not all—of its components with the rendezvous control hardware being developed for Shenzhou manned spaceships, which clearly would not be banned...
...Today, Hillary Clinton would put a cap on the number of American soldiers in Iraq...
...And the Boston Globe celebrated the Chinese strike because "it could lead to something positive" since it might persuade the Bush administration to talk about a treaty...
...Not that the Times fully comprehended what China had done...
...The Russian defense minister, Sergei Ivanov, declared his doubts that the "alleged test" even occurred...
...This week, the Senate will take up resolutions opposing the addition of 21,500 troops to Iraq, a buildup Petraeus says is indispensable to his plan to secure Baghdad...
...Those in Congress who advocate retreat in Iraq refuse to acknowledge this lesson...
...Webb, echoing many others in Congress, said withdrawals should begin "in short order...
...The members of Congress whose actions prompted the collapse expressed no shame or embarrassment for having betrayed allies...
...Indeed, China and Russia, along with other nations, have for years been pushing for what they call a "treaty to prevent the deployment of weapons in space...
...And we know where it leads: to defeat while victory remains quite possible...
...In Iraq, it occurred gradually at first, then rapidly once violence and chaos in Baghdad flared over the last year...
...As much as possible, we need to keep this debate away from Vietnam," Webb said last week...
...Their perfidy was greeted with silence...
...And practically no one held them accountable...
...In Vietnam, the slide down the slippery slope seemed inevitable...
...visiting India, sniped that China "is not the first country which has conducted such trials...
...But the explosion in space destroyed something else, too...
...This happened in six descending steps in Vietnam, and today's coalition in Congress of antiwar Democrats and vacillating Republicans has started pushing us down that dangerous slope...
...An international treaty "banning" space weapons, as the Times advocates, would depend crucially on the expectation that, absent effective verification procedures, the parties would be able to trust each other because of a track record of openness and candor...
...In 1970, the Cooper-Church amendment sought to bar funding for any American troops in Cambodia, a sanctuary for invading forces from North Vietnam...
...As far as I know, the first such tests were carried out back in the 1980s" by the United States...
...ident and his top officials cannot speak the truth about decades-old Soviet space weapons or the current Chinese test, how trustworthy have they shown themselves to be about less-verifiable space plans in the future...
...In a May 22, 2006, working paper at the Conference on Disarmament, Russia and China observed that "no consensus has been reached so far on the definition of 'space weapon'" or even of "outer space...
...True, only a minority in Congress favors a cutoff today, but that bloc could grow...
...In Vietnam, this occurred after the Tet offensive in 1968...
...Responding exactly as could have been expected, the Times editors first accused the Bush administration of having "bellicose attitudes" of its own, then urged the administration to sign on to "an arms control treaty for space," which would ban what China had just done...
...This time, self-inflicted defeat should not be met with silence...
...Rep...
...The first step is, when the war goes poorly, public support falls and politicians dramatically increase their criticism...
...So the newly elected Democratic senator from Virginia—a fierce opponent of the war in Iraq—wants to keep Vietnam out of the debate over Iraq...
...protection [of American satellites] by initiating an international agreement to ban the development, testing, and deployment of space weapons and anti-satellite systems...
...If they refuse to acknowledge success and cause a repeat of the Vietnam calamity, they should be held accountable...
...Four decades ago, General Creighton Abrams became the American commander in Vietnam, also with a new strategy...
...The fourth step—the one we're approaching now in Iraq—would put restrictions on troop deployments...
...No, the target wasn't the derelict weather satellite that happened to get blown to smithereens by the missile's impact...
...Vladimir Putin, James Oberg is a space consultant and author in Houston...
...If the Russian presIf the Russian president and his top officials cannot speak the truth about decades-old Soviet space weapons or the current Chinese test, how trustworthy have they shown themselves to be about less-verifiable future space plans...
...But Webb feared that many who supported the Vietnam war, and watched America abandon South Vietnam as it grew close to victory over the Communist forces of North Vietnam, might see similarities...
...Russia, too, stepped in to demonstrate bluntly the vanity of hopes that transparency and honesty could provide a firm basis for a credible anti-space weapons treaty...
...A dozen projects around the world are developing robots to fly to targets in space to inspect and manipulate them (for repair and resupply...
...Various definitions are nonetheless suggested for discussion, including one with this curious loophole: "except...
...The paper advanced various views, including one that "suggests that there is no need for definitions, on the ground that formulating them is both very difficult and unnecessary...
...Edward Markey (D-Mass...
...Step two consists of growing criticism of the foreign government that America is supporting...
...this so-called treaty has no prospect of delivering on its grandiose title...
...Would adding a pair of wire cutters be all that is needed to transform them into "space weapons...
...In a word, it was counter-insurgency, and it worked...
...With their calls for troop withdrawals and fund cutoffs and their antiwar resolutions, they have put America on a slippery slope in Iraq...
...He worked 22 years at NASA Mission Control...
...A new general, David Petraeus, is taking over in Iraq with a credible new strategy, counter-insurgency...
...Senator Hillary Clinton, for instance, insists Maliki has failed to seek reconciliation between Shia and Sunnis—that is, a political solution...
...But just as with Abraham Lincoln's famous five-legged dog ("If I call a tail a leg, does a dog have five legs...
...First of all, there is no accepted definition of what is to be banned...
...to negotiate agreements not to weapon-ize space...
...In Southeast Asia, it led to the deaths of more than two million people in Vietnam and Cambodia after the Communist triumph...
...The third step involves resolutions and threats...
Vol. 12 • February 2007 • No. 20
