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Article: "The Graham Greene Argument": A Vietnam Parallel that Escaped George W. Bush.(REFLECTIONS)(Report)
- Article from:
- World Policy Journal
- Article date:
- September 22, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 World Policy Institute. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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In a speech this August to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, President George W. Bush boasted of success in Iraq and invoked memories of Vietnam to attack his critics and justify his decisions. He recalled that the U.S. withdrawal from Indochina led fatefully to the horrors of the re-education camps, the fleeing boat people, and the Cambodian genocide. But most curious was his reference to Graham Greene's The Quiet American, which seemed to miss the point of the 1955 novel and what it uncannily foretold.
The reference resonated with me not only because I wrote about Vietnam for Newsweek, but also because I virtually relived some of the episodes that Greene described ...