Editor's note: This is a version of a Jan. 10 post on davidmixner.com. Mixner, a longtime fixture in Los Angeles, was a leader of the anti-Vietnam War movement, where he befriended Bill Clinton. When Clinton ran for president, Mixner emphasized the discriminatory ban against gays serving openly in the military, which Clinton promised to lift. Mixner spearheaded the LGBT community's historic push to elect Clinton. When Clinton ordered the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, Mixner protested and was arrested outside the White House. Mixner, now a writer, lives outside New York City.

By David Mixner

Why is it with the War in Iraq that often I feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day? You wake up to a familiar world and know what events are about to unfold and have little power to change them.

President Bush spoke on Jan. 10 and once more our nation is escalating another unpopular war. It is striking how similar this is to the old policies of the Vietnam War.

In the very early days of Bush's unwise foreign-policy adventure, many warned that Iraq had the potential of becoming another disastrous quagmire like Vietnam. Many in power looked down their noses at the mere suggestion of such a parallel, and those of us who had the audacity to bring it up were made to look like aging hippies who couldn't leave the ‘60s.

Now we hear another president, more than 30 years later, will send more troops to train the local military to enforce peace, though discharged gay translators, officers and soldiers who would like to serve will not be among them.

Those of us old enough to have lived through the other war remember Vietnamization. This was a policy cooked up by President Nixon's secretary of defense, Melvin Laird. The concept was to increase America's military presence in Vietnam to buy time for the South Vietnamese forces so they could win the war. It was a total failure and the Vietnam War continued for five more years, with many young soldiers dying and the destruction of Vietnam continuing.

Sound familiar?

Sen. Ted Kennedy in his remarkable speech on Jan. 9 reminded us of how similar these wars have become. Kennedy quoted President Lyndon Johnson from 1966, ordering 100,000 more American soldiers to Vietnam: "The big problem is to get territory and to keep it. You can get it today and it will be gone next week. That is the problem. You have to have enough people to clear it… and enough people to preserve what you have done."

In Vietnam, the White House grew increasingly obsessed with victory and increasingly divorced from the will of the people and any rational policy. The Department of Defense kept assuring us that each new escalation in Vietnam would be the last. Instead, each one led only to the next.

Juan Espinosa, night editor of the Pueblo Chieftain, wrote a column last November about what it was like to see Vietnamization in action: "Like in Vietnam, as a nation we're determined to stay until the new Democratic government of Iraq can stand on its own and put down the insurgents. Since all the king’s horses and all the king’s men haven't been successful in putting down the Iraqi insurgents on our watch, I doubt that anytime in the near future the propped-up government of Iraq will ever win that fight on its own.

"I remember working on the flight line in Danang, Vietnam, in early 1969 watching our Vietnam allies prepare to take over the war. It was a joke. Every morning, a group of Vietnamese helicopter pilots were bused to the flight line to a fleet of a dozen or so vintage choppers," he continued. “We watched as they went from helicopter to helicopter to see which ones would start. After a while, the pilot trainees would fly off to an unknown destination. Since their helicopters were unarmed, we doubted they were contributing significantly to the war effort. At the end of the day, they would return, climb into the waiting buses and drive away. Six years later, the U.S. withdrew its troops from Vietnam, and the South Vietnamese government folded like a tent."

Like Groundhog Day, it's all too familiar.

President Bush will continue sending troops with the support of neither the American people nor the Congress of the United States. There will be a resolution—my guess is that it will be somewhat watered down—passed to express congressional disapproval. The troops will continue pouring into Iraq. If anyone dares to attempt to limit funds for this insane war, suddenly shortages will appear on the frontlines. The president will claim that it is because of cowards and traitors in Congress, and rather than reduce force levels or begin a withdrawal, he'll allow our troops to go without critical equipment like body armor.

How long are we going to lose our own young soldiers and thousands of Iraqis to this war? Look at someone's 18-year-old child who is graduating from high school this year and you are looking into the face of an American soldier. They are young and they are dying.

If we believe that incongruity in Iraqi society and government is an inevitability, rooted in a history generations older than this three-year war, that we can no longer avoid chaos no matter if or when we depart, then we have to believe it is time to bring our soldiers home.

There was a United States senator from Vermont named George Aiken. He was a Republican who served in the Senate starting in 1940. He was one of those old-time senators whose politics were formed by World War II and who believed in civilized debate. After serving the Senate for near three decades, he said the solution to Vietnam was simple: Just declare we had won, put our troops on planes and bring them home.

Sounds good to me.