Khe Sanh, Not Baghdad

You could be forgiven for assuming the latest imagery from Iraq at left - and he latest Pentagon rhetoric from Vietnam!

Sweep back 37 years to a besieged American military base in a now obscure Asian country and forgotten war.

March 6, 1968, USAF C-123 approaching Khe Sanh airstrip, under fire and forced to circle die to a small aircraft, crashed into a nearby hill, killing 44 Marines, four air crew, and 23-year-old photographer Robert Ellison.

Ellison was returning to Khe Sanh despite being told not to .. "I don't want to leave there until those Marines do. I will march out with them."

Ten days later weary, frustrated, and demoralized marines of 'C' Company negate every courageous sacrifice of the war when, on March 16, the village MyLai was obliterated - buildings fired, people dead or dying. Twenty months later army investigators discover graves containing the bodies of 500 villagers.

Ellison's enduring image of stunned soldier and exploding ammunition seems now an iconic effigy of stubbornly inept U.S. foreign policy.

As always, while banner rises upon ruins of someone else's nation, and on bodies of young Americans, the fledgling democracy is applauded from Rose Garden remote - and opportunity savoured by military-corporate conjoined.

Thirty-eight years apart, the message hardly differs:

U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote : Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong Terror - New York Times, September 3, 1967.

Bush Hails Iraqi Vote, but Warns of More Fighting Ahead - New York Times, January 31, 2005.

And, this ironic commentary written in 1972:

" Three basic government arguments are that Vietnam represents part of the thrust by Communist China between the Indian and Pacific Oceans, or the determination of Communist China to establish hegemony in South East Asia, or the first round of an attack by the Chinese Communists in an effort to dominate the world.

"Today we no longer have to debate this sort of nonsense, though it is remarkable that a country can go to war for six years without anyone bothering to challenge the obviously false premises on which that war was launched."

.. 3, 2, 1 .. my fingers snap, you are awake, you will remember nothing.

Into the SUV, rush to Wal-Mart. The kids need home theatre for their playroom, and you promised to treat yourself to a new, all-singing, all-dancing cell phone.

Foreigners suffer, Marines die..