In an August 23, 2007 article on the Editor & Publisher website, Greg Mitchell shares reaction from journalists and historians to President Bush's recent remark in which he compared the U.S.'s involvement in Iraq with its involvement in Vietnam in the mid-20th Century.Mitchell writes:After years of mocking those who drew comparisons between the U.S. engagements in Vietnam and Iraq, war supporters are now invoking them – led by commander-in-chief George W. Bush, in a much-publicized speech today at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Kansas City. Now, how will the media respond to the “Vietnamization” of rhetoric on Iraq, as unveiled by President Bush today? At least three major papers quickly sought out critics who have tried to debunk it. USA Today located Stanley Karnow, one of the leading scholars on the Vietnam war. “Vietnam was not a bunch of sectarian groups fighting each other,” as in Iraq. “Does he think we should have stayed in Vietnam?” Robert Dallek, author of several celebrated biographies of recent U.S. presidents, including Lyndon Johnson, told the Los Angeles Times: “"It just boggles my mind, the distortions I feel are perpetrated here by the president. "We were in Vietnam for 10 years. We dropped more bombs on Vietnam than we did in all of World War II in every theater. We lost 58,700 American lives, the second-greatest loss of lives in a foreign conflict. And we couldn't work our will," he said. "What is Bush suggesting? That we didn't fight hard enough, stay long enough? That's nonsense. It's a distortion," he continued. "We've been in Iraq longer than we fought in World War II. It's a disaster, and this is a political attempt to lay the blame for the disaster on his opponents. But the disaster is the consequence of going in, not getting out." The New York Times also talked to Dallek, who pointed out that the slaughters of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia “was a consequence of our having gone into Cambodia and destabilized that country.” And it interviewed Andrew Bacevich, a Vietnam veteran and now professor of international relations at Boston University (his son was recently killed in Iraq). Bacevich said of the Vietnam pullout: "It was not a precipitous withdrawal, it was a very deliberate disengagement. The Vietnam comparison should invite us to think harder about how to minimize the consequences of our military failure. If one is really concerned about the Iraqi people, and the fate that may be awaiting them as this war winds down, then we ought to get serious about opening our doors and to welcoming to the United States those Iraqis who have supported us..." ...Shortly before his death earlier this year, legendary Vietnam war correspondent David Halberstam said, “I thought that in both Vietnam and Iraq, we were going against history. My view — and I think it was because of Vietnam — was that the forces against us were going to be hostile, that we would not be viewed as liberators. We were going to punch our fist into the largest hornets’ nest in the world...” Click here for Mitchell's article in its entirety on the Editor & Publisher website.