CIA Successfuly Conceals Bay of Pigs History

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21. ''By God, we’ve kicked the Vietnam Syndrome once and for all.'' -- GHW Bush

Kicking the Vietnam Syndrome

From the Archive: With Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf’s death on Thursday – and the declining health of ex-President George H.W. Bush – an era of war and intrigue is coming to an end, a time of resurgent U.S. imperialism that saw this warrior seeking peace and the politician wanting war, as Robert Parry wrote in 2011.

By Robert Parry (Originally published on Feb. 28, 2011, and slightly updated)
Consortiumnews.com, December 28, 2012

Two decades ago, with a resounding victory in a 100-hour ground war against Iraqi troops in Kuwait, the first Bush administration completed the restoration of a powerful public consensus, a renewed national commitment that the United States should act as the world’s imperial policeman.

That consensus, which took shape after World War II, had been shattered by the Vietnam War and rebuilding public support for foreign adventures had become a key (though secret) goal of the Persian Gulf ground war, which President George H.W. Bush ordered on Feb. 23, 1991, and called off on Feb. 28.

Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, who died Thursday, commanded U.S. forces during the Persian Gulf War of 1990-91. He favored a negotiated Iraqi withdrawal fromKuwait that would have avoided a ground war, but was overruled by President George H.W. Bush and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin Powell. Bush wanted to use the ground war to “kick the Vietnam Syndrome.”
Bush knew that the extra killing of Iraqi and American troops wasn’t needed to achieve the military objective of getting Iraqi forces out of Kuwait, because Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had long signaled his readiness to withdraw.

But Bush and his top political advisers, including Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, insisted on the ground war as a dramatic climax to a story line designed to thrill the American people – and get them to embrace warfare again as an exciting part of the national character.

Bush, Cheney and other senior officials judged that the slaughter of tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers, mostly poorly trained conscripts, and the combat deaths of some 147 American soldiers was a small price to pay.

On Feb. 28, 1991, just hours after the fighting stopped, Bush gave the public a fleeting glimpse of his secret agenda when he celebrated the ground war victory by blurting out the seemingly incongruous declaration, “By God, we’ve kicked the Vietnam Syndrome once and for all.”

CONTINUED...

http://consortiumnews.com/2012/12/28/kicking-the-vietnam-syndrome/