No other words really do justice to the idiot who nominally heads the US government. What else can be concluded by Bush's attempt to justify the continued occupation of Iraq by comparing it to what followed the US pullout from Vietnam.

The most obvious factual inaccuracy is his claim that one of the consequences of leaving would be that "the enemy would follow us home." Except, of course, that did not happen after Vietnam despite claims made at the time. The Vietnamese were too busy trying to repair the damage that US invasion had caused to their country. We can be sure that Iraq would be the same particularly as the vast bulk of the insurgency are Iraqi Nationalists and not Islamic fundamentalists.

Equally wrongly, he opined that "one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people', 're-education camps' and 'killing fields'." Except, of course, America did not "withdraw" voluntarily. It was loosing both the war in Vietnam and the (class) war at home. Nor did Bush explain how defeat in Vietnam led to the "killing fields" in Cambodia. Strangely he failed to note that it was the covert carpet bombing of Cambodia by the US that created the opportunity for the Khmer Rouge to seize power. So it was not American "withdrawal" but intervention that led to the killing fields. Nor Bush did note that the US bombing killed around 700,000 people in that country. Nor did he bother to mention that the US, like the UK, supported, armed and trained the Khmer Rouge after the Vietnamese state invaded Cambodia in response to its attacks (and the US accused Vietnam of aggression when it ended Pol Pot's genocidal reign).

So, according to Bush, the US must remain in Iraq because of what happened in another country unoccupied by the American Empire but subject to its bombing campaigns. Logic, we can surmise, is not Bush's strong point (or, perhaps, this analogy is used to explain a forthcoming bombing campaign against Iran?). The notion that American must continue to occupy Iraq because of the disastrous consequences of its attempt to occupy Vietnam is so silly that it staggers belief that someone thought it was a good idea to get Bush to repeat it in public.

But, then, you would expect Bush to be a bit ignorant of the details of the US record in Vietnam and Asia. He was, thanks to his family connections, in Texas defending it against imminent attack by the Viet-Cong. Still, to be fair there is a big difference between Vietnam and Iraq - Bush knew how to get out of Vietnam.

Bush pointed to the fact that "in Vietnam, former allies of the United States and government workers and intellectuals and businessmen were sent off to prison camps where tens of thousands perished." Yes, when foreign occupation ends there is a tendency for revenge killings of collaborators to occur. In post-occupied France, for example, many thousands were killed because they had sided with the Nazis. This does not make the killings justifiable, of course, nor should we forget that Stalinism involves state terror, it is simply to state a fact of history. Nor should we forget that, like Bush's grandfather, many right-wingers and businessmen were happy to work with the fascist regimes - they kept the working class in place and profits were readily available. Equally, we should note that Vietnamese deaths were well over 2 million due to the war.

So, again, the logic behind this argument is hard to grasp. It appears to be that America should continue its occupation because leaving may result in fewer deaths than continuing the war. It is possible that if the US leaves Iraq then tens of thousands will die and hundreds of thousands displaced. Sadly Bush fails to note that this is what has already happened - except that hundreds of thousands have already died and millions have been displaced.

Then there is his comment that "our troops have killed or captured an average of more than 1,500 al Qaeda terrorists and other extremists every month . . . this year." So, in 2007, US troops apparently killed at least 13,500 "al Qaeda terrorists and other extremists" (presumably the corpses had the appropriate membership cards). Before the US invasion and occupation, there were no "al Qaeda terrorists and other extremists." In other words, the US should continue to occupy Iraq in order to kill the tens of thousands of "extremists" created by its occupation of Iraq.

Bush was at pains to associate Islamic fundamentalism with past tyrannies like Fascism and Stalinism. Thus fighting in Korea was important because otherwise "the Soviets and Chinese communists would have learned the lesson that aggression pays." Yes, the Soviets definitely learned the lesson that it could not interfere in other countries like Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia just as China realised occupying Tibet would not pay. Just as America learned the lesson that it could not invade, say, the Philippines, Panama or some oil-rich Middle Eastern country and expect to get away with it.

Remember, though, that "the militarists of Japan and the communists in Korea and Vietnam were driven by a merciless vision for the proper ordering of humanity. They killed Americans because we stood in the way of their attempt to force their ideology on others." Of course, invading a country to introduce American approved notions of what "liberty" and "democracy" are is completely different, just as America supporting military coups against democratically elected governments simply shows how much it values both liberty and democracy.

The historical revisionism continued, with Bush asserting that "Asia would pull itself out of poverty and hopelessness as it embraced markets and freedom." Except, of course, it did not. Asia industrialised by violating the market, but means of statist industrial policies (including protectionism and state planning). Needless to say, these regimes also tended to ban unions and other forms of popular organisation, i.e., the freedom of workers to organise and protest. Similarly, while Bush stated that "today most of the nations in Asia are free" and he did not mention that those nations which are "free" did so in spite of the US supporting (when not helping to impose) the dictatorships they had to overthrow.

China, it should be noted, is very successfully following this Asian model of industrialisation, namely interventionist dictatorship to both govern the market and crush working class resistance to oppression and exploitation. And if, as a result of popular struggle, China does become a democracy the equivalent of Bush will undoubtedly proclaim that some later time that it pulled itself out of poverty by means of markets and freedom.

So, for anyone with a grasp of the facts, "the lesson from Asia's development" is not "that the heart's desire for liberty will not be denied." Rather, it is denying working class people freedom to organise and access to a free market is a key way to successfully industrialise. Capitalism has always developed by denying the majority liberty and has always been marked by imperialism (in the interests of civilisation and those subject to it, of course). America is no more an exception to that rule than the Asia economies.

One thing Bush said was true, though. Yes, "once people even get a small taste of liberty, they're not going to rest until they're free." Which is precisely why capitalists have always turned to the state to protect their powers and privileges and why moronic politicians like Bush rewrite history when it suits them.

The question is not, "why are we ruled by such morons?" The question is, "why do we tolerate it?" The war in Iraq will be stopped when the American and British people act to stop it. If they rely on politicians to act for them, it will drag on for years. And what better way to under "anti-American" feelings in Islamic countries than a massive anti-war movement which proclaims its solidarity to those subject to American Imperialism? For as Iraq shows beyond all doubt, imperialist war will ensure that Islamic terrorism will not only a hearing but also willing recruits.