William Angel – 10/27/06

This page was last updated on October 30, 2006.

History repeats itself; William Angel; Beaver County Times; October 27, 2006.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“As George Santayana said, ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’

“I recently came across an interesting quotation from Sir Robert Thompson, an expert in counter-insurgency warfare, who served as a consultant to Presidents Kennedy and Nixon.

“His ‘Squaring the Error’ article in Foreign Affairs (April 1968) spoke of the need to build a strong infrastructure in Vietnam as opposed to an approach using only military aggression.

“Thompson wrote of ‘an intensely practical approach’ involving ‘the selection and training of qualified administrators and technicians at all levels; the consolidation and clarification of the law; the promulgation in terms of service and simplified government procedures.’

“He also emphasized the need for ‘restoration of law and order which requires a professionally qualified police force (a task which alone will take 10 years, not six months).

“‘Not until you get performance - and that is the key word - can you hope to have any semblance of democracy in Vietnam. Democracy is not elections and voting; it is the liberty of the individual and his protection by law, not just against the Vietcong but against all the local factional secret society cliques, so that he can make a free choice.’

“There are those who feel that to compare Iraq to Vietnam is to use irrelevant, inflammatory rhetoric. On the contrary, there are many uncanny and disturbing similarities.”

[RWC] Exactly what is Mr. Angel’s complaint? We’re doing all the things his letter claims we should be doing.