In August 1962, President Kennedy signed the Foreign Assistance Act, which pledged “military assistance to countries which are on the rim of the Communist world and under direct attack.”

This act would later provide the foundation for the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War. Forty years later, we find ourselves standing witness to yet another series of incendiary political moves that are steadily marching America toward the precipice of war.

For months, President Bush has been continuously pledging Saddam Hussein will be removed from power in Iraq. Bush is asking the American public, as well as our foreign friends and allies, to support his plan for a preemptive, unprovoked strike in order to oust the undesirable leader. The aggressive proposal smacks of military coup. Thereby, the plan has met ceaseless apprehension and opposition, both domestically and abroad.

Mohammed Medhi Saleh, a member of Hussein’s cabinet, warned recently that a U.S. attack would inevitably result in a “new Vietnam.” Saleh’s statement is well founded. If those in power would ever look backward, they would find a wealth of knowledge based on the successes and failures of their predecessors. Disdainfully, Bush and his militant cowboy defense team are too busy looking forward in a vain attempt to make history and will therefore fail to learn from it.

George W. Bush would do well to listen to the ghosts of administrations past while making his decisions about the future of America. President Kennedy famously declared in 1961, “We shall pay any price, bear any burden and meet any hardship to ensure the survival and success of liberty.”

And pay a price we did. Fifteen years of war in Vietnam, and the U.S. government had nothing to show for its tragic involvement except for 47,244 Americans killed in action, 153,329 seriously wounded soldiers, over 10,000 amputees and 2,400 POWs/ MIAs.

The threat to liberty against which Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon fought so diligently was communism.

In our modern climate, the Marxist ideology has been supplanted by a new buzzword for evil: terrorism.

World leaders are unified in their frothing rage against the terrorist threat. In a pan-continental effort major superpowers are stalking the globe, fingers on the trigger, committed to hunt down any and every propagator of terror.

America is indisputably leading the charge, but there is disagreement when it comes to Iraq. Ousting a leader by force because he poses a threat is seen by many to be an assumptive step too far.

In a recent speech, President Bush said, “We have got to be prepared to use our military and all other assets at our disposal in a way to keep the peace.”

The sentiment echoes Kennedy’s “we shall pay any price” speech from 41 years earlier.

The unseating of Hussein would not be the first time the White House was involved in a forced ousting. In 1963, it became apparent that ally South Vietnam was in grave danger of being taken over by the Northern Vietcong. The people of South Vietnam were growing increasingly fed-up with their corrupt leader, President Diem. Protests and violence were breaking out on the streets, monks were burning themselves alive, and America’s relationship with Diem was falling apart.

The crux was that the United States had entered Vietnam under the auspice of protecting South Vietnam from a communist takeover. If the south fell to Ho Chi Minh’s northern forces, the war was lost. Kennedy and his key advisors began a series of meetings to discuss the possibility of Diem’s ousting.

Then, word came to the White House that South Vietnamese conspirators were planning a military coup. The conspirators wanted to know if the United States would still support the south in its fight against northern takeover when the coup was complete.

President Kennedy pledged his support. However, in the following hours Kennedy faltered and asked that the coup be called off, but it was too late. At 3 a.m., after a long hunt by militants, President Diem was captured and assassinated.

According to White House records, when Kennedy was informed the ousting was complete, he turned a ghastly shade of white and left the room immediately.

He later wrote in his private diary of the coup, “I feel that we must bear a good deal of responsibility for it.”

The Kennedy administration had failed to look beyond the removal of Diem. His assassination created a power vacuum in South Vietnam. The political chaos allowed the north to move in and increase its hold by 40 percent.

The words “political chaos” and “power vacuum” have been sprinkling the pages of newspapers in recent days as analysts warn the proposed ousting of Hussein will cause the same problems. A growing number of U.S. allies and lawmakers of both parties have sternly warned Bush that an ouster will destabilize the region.

In 1964, pride reared its ugly head again. Defense secretary Robert McNamara and other key advisors began to stress to President Johnson the importance of protecting South Vietnam from communist takeover. It became apparent the United States’ commitment to fighting communism and LBJ’s reputation were both on the line.

President Bush is faced with a similar situation now.

His commitment to fight terrorism and to oust Hussein has backed his administration into the proverbial corner.

It’s not just the rhetoric and circumstance of Vietnam and Iraq that are similar but also the strategies.

In 1964, McNamara advised Johnson to adopt a policy of gradually escalating involvement in Vietnam over a period of time. The same plan was utilized by General Schwarzkopf in 1991 as a four-phase plan of escalating military involvement in the Persian Gulf.

When deliberating on Iraq in the coming days, President Bush should remember his forefathers — or even his own father.

In 1991, George Bush the elder sent a half million U.S. troops marching into Baghdad, with the objective to “incapacitate, discredit and isolate the Hussein regime and to eliminate Iraqi offensive/defensive capability.”

The only person who was discredited was W’s dad. Our Gulf War cost a fortune, killed civilians and embarrassed our military — not to mention the massive ecological damage left behind after Hussein dumped millions of barrels of crude oil into the gulf and lit them on fire in an unprecedented act of eco-warfare.

In fact, when the first Gulf War finally came to an end, the press declared it the “end of the Vietnam syndrome.”

Indeed, President Bush need look no further than the family album and the History Channel to gain insight into the grave repercussions of an offensive strike against Iraq.

Kate MacDonald ([email protected]) is a journalism, film and economics student at UW-Milwaukee. She is a former ArtsEtc. editor of The Badger Herald.