SS Mayaguez Times 100

In May of 1975 Gerald Ford ordered the Marines and Airforce to rescue the crew of the SS Mayaguez (a container ship) after it and its 40 man crew had been captured by Khmer Rouge gun boats just after the fall of Saigon and Phnom Pen. The crew was being held on a small, off shore island. The problem was that the Khmer Rouge had agreed to release the crew and transfered them to fishing boat headed for the mainland before Ford gave the order to proceed with the rescue (Ford was informed of this before he gave the order). To make matters worse, 38 marines were killed and 3 were captured (presumed executed) and another 41 Americans were wounded in the rescue. After the disasterous battle began to rescue the already released crew, the crew were transfered to US costudy without incident. The operation is far less famous than Jimmy Carter's infamous rescue attempt in Iran - despite it being both pointless and more costly!

Today, just days after the 5th anniversary of the invasion, the cost of Mr. Bush's war in American lives reached 4,000. 4000 men and women have died so that we could verify that Iraq didn't have WMDs after all (something the inspectors had been telling us anyway) and so that we could replace an odious, but contained, dictator with regional war lords and increasing Iranian influence. Bush will say now that the real reason was that Iraq was in league with Al Qaeda (something we also know wasn't true). Even if that were true, we've lost far more people "avenging" this supposed connection than we lost in the original attack - just like with the Mayaguez incident.

George W. Bush: The ethics of Nixon and the intelligence of Ford.