Bush Cites The Quiet American. From the Tribune's Swamp:

In his speech at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Kansas City today, President Bush summoned up the Alden Pyle CIA agent character of Graham Greene's classic Vietnam novel "The Quiet American" which is essentially a contemplation on the road to hell being paved with good intentions.

I'm not sure he really wanted to go there or why his speechwriters would take him there.

As Bush said:

In 1955, long before the United States had entered the war, Graham Greene wrote a novel called "The Quiet American." It was set in Saigon and the main character was a young government agent named Alden Pyle. He was a symbol of American purpose and patriotism and dangerous naivete. Another character describes Alden this way: "I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused."

After America entered the Vietnam War, Graham Greene -- the Graham Greene argument gathered some steam. Matter of fact, many argued that if we pulled out, there would be no consequences for the Vietnamese people. In 1972, one anti-war senator put it this way: "What earthly difference does it make to nomadic tribes or uneducated subsistence farmers in Vietnam or Cambodia or Laos whether they have a military dictator, a royal prince or a socialist commissar in some distant capital that they've never seen and may never heard of?"

Bush seemed to be seizing on Greene's idea of U.S. naivete on entering the war and trying to turn it around and apply it to those now calling for a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

But Greene wrote his book about the way America bumbled into Vietnam, not how it left it.

By reminding people of Greene's book, Bush was inviting listeners to recall the mistakes his administration made in entering and prosecuting the Iraq War. Did he really want to do that?

Even more astonishing is that Bush's speechwriters included in the president's speech a mention of the very fictional character some of the president's critics have used for years to lambaste him for what they consider a major strategic blunder.

The thinking goes, Bush may have been well-intentioned like Pyle but, also like the Greene character, Bush's efforts are ultimately doomed. ...

Is our president's speech writer confused? Just getting around to this classic? Has anyone fully analyzed how seemingly self-destructive is this analogy the president of his own volition promoted today? Did Kissinger write this speech? (Update: In a way, yes).

Posted by Laura at August 22, 2007 11:03 PM