Action in Iraq a mirror image of Viet Nam??

POINTS FOR COMPARISON?
What are some of the points for comparison regarding I/P versus V/USA? And Iraq/USA versus I/P and/or V/USA? None of the invaded entities want(ed) the invading powers to be in their country. In Vietnam, we know who won that conflict and why. As for the other two "conflicts," they're not over yet. Iraq is a very different society. We do know what happened to the British in Iraq eventually: They packed it in and went home. Did they "lose" in the same way that the USA "lost" in Vietnam? Both periods in history are too complicated to sum up in a few shorth sentences here.

What is your take on the USA-in-Iraq situation versus the USA-in-Vietnam?[/color]

This war appears far more similar to Israel/Palestine - with the major exception that Bush wants to install a puppet regime and remove most of his forces and body-bags in time to pacify public concerns in time for the next election.

After which, he can use them to invade some other mineral-rich nation threatening the world with Weapons Of Mass Destruction - at taxpayers' expense .... naturally.

Apparently the soldiers are calling "Viet Nam without the jungle"!

FROM THE NOVEMBER 2, 2003, UK GUARDIAN
From the November 2, 2003, UK Guardian regarding "Vietnam in Iraq":

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"Rebel war spirals out of control as US intelligence loses the plot

"The ghosts of Vietnam are returning as Baathists, zealots, criminals, tribal leaders and al Qaeda unite in a deadly alliance of hatred. Special report by Peter Beaumont in London and Patrick Graham in Baghdad

"Sunday November 2, 2003
"The Observer

"Sharp disagreements are emerging between the US and the UK over the exact nature of the Iraqi resistance, amid warnings that the US is losing the intelligence war against the rebels.

"After eight days in which Iraqi fighters have scored a series of major blows to the coalition and its Iraqi allies, intelligence and military officials in Iraq and on both sides of the Atlantic are at odds over whether they are fighting a Saddam-led movement or a series of disparate partisan groups. They are just as divided on finding a way to halt the escalating violence. . . . "

THE GHOSTS OF VIETNAM

I'm not too confident that today's tragic events and their predecessors will encourage many other nations to help the Administration out by providing their own forces as sitting targets?

Thomas L. Friedman: Bush's liberal war in Iraq is no Vietnam


http://www.iht.com/articles/115802.html

Vietnam--Gulf of Tonkin
Iraq--WoMD

dyslexia
No doubt that both actions were built on a lie. However, are the actions on the ground similar or dissimilar? Would I be safe in saying this is Viet Nam redux or wouldn't I?

AU for me its very difficult to make that assessment, I would only say that much of the same speaches/lies are giving for justification while the body count climbs. In Vietnam we were "stopping the domino of communism" and in Iraq we are "stopping the domino of terrorism"
both are bullshit magnified.

Gotta agree with Dyslexia. Only the terrain and the costumes have changed.

Edgar
I would also add the support. We were fighting the nation of North Viet Nam. A nation who had a standing army who was fighting on familiar terrain and was supported and supplied by powerful neighbors.

The failure of Viet Nam was that Washington was trying to micro-manage the war from half way around the world. Can't be done.

Grassroots resistance is what we are facing once again. That outsiders are also coming in is to be expected when the entire region detests what we are doing.

FROM THE au1929 LINK: THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
From the au1929 link: Thomas L. Friedman, who says why Iraq is NOT like Vietnam.

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". . . There is this notion being peddled by Europeans, the Arab press and the antiwar left that "Iraq" is just Arabic for Vietnam, and we should expect these kinds of attacks from Iraqis wanting to "liberate" their country from "U.S. occupation." These attackers are the Iraqi Vietcong.

"Hogwash. The people who mounted the attacks on the Red Cross are not the Iraqi Vietcong. They are the Iraqi Khmer Rouge - a murderous band of Saddam Hussein loyalists and Al Qaeda nihilists, who are not killing Americans so Iraqis can rule themselves. They are killing Americans so they can rule Iraqis.

"Have you noticed that these bombers never say what their political agenda is or whom they represent? They don't want Iraqis to know who they really are. A vast majority of Iraqis would reject them, because these bombers either want to restore Baathism or install bin Ladenism.

"Let's get real. What the people who blew up the Red Cross and the Iraqi police fear is not that America is going to permanently occupy Iraq. They fear that America is going to permanently change Iraq.

"The great irony is that the Baathists and Arab dictators are opposing the United States in Iraq because - unlike many leftists - they understand exactly what this war is about. They understand that U.S. power is not being used in Iraq for oil, or imperialism, or to shore up a corrupt status quo, as it was in Vietnam and elsewhere in the Arab world during the cold war. They understand that this is the most radical-liberal revolutionary war the United States has ever launched - a war of choice to install some democracy in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world. . . . "
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We cannot Americanize the Middle East, call it liberation, democratization, whatever. We have gone in uninvited and we have done very little for the nation or its people.

If Afghanistan is any example, we're stepping on too much desert sand to do much good in Iraq. Karzai in Pakistan wants about 20 billion to keep his government running. Wonder where that's coming from?

You all are missing what is to me the most important parallel - the enemy who must be faught at all costs.

For Viet Nam, this enemy was Communism. In the name of fighting communism we not only bombed and fought in Viet Nam. We also supported death squads in Central America, and spied on American citizens.

Now we have a new enemy -- Muslem extremism. For this we are not only bombing, fighting and occupying Iraq. We are also imprisoning people without due process and spying on Americans.

The Thomas Friedman piece, especially the section highlighted by Charli is very similar to pro-war propaganda in the Viet Nam era. The North Vietnamese people were portrayed in exactly the same way -- a murderous band who want to rule.

Thomas Friedman's rhetoric sounds very reminiscent of pro-war propaganda of 20 years ago.

Sorry, maybe I am just feeling a bit nostalgic....

Very true. On the other hand, we cannot ignore a clear and present danger to OUR society. There are extremists in the middle east who are hell bent on destroying OUR country. The problem is, that we cannot put the cast of characters, the different problems, in neat little boxes.

The Vietnamese weren't bombing American interests and America itself. I think that there are factions in this country who throw out the word "Vietnam" for a specific reason, having nothing to do with any of the alleged similarities of the two situations. I believe that Vietnam has been bandied about not so much because of any parallels with the middle east, but because the word itself has an emotional hot-button connotation with many Americans.

Phoenix,

There is simply no real "clear and present danger".

This is the exact same crap that we were fed 30 years ago. I am not sure if you are old enough to remember, but there was a time when communists were infiltrating the US "at the highest level". This was the same type of "clear and present danger."

It's not that hard to understand. If the administration can convince the American public that there is an brutal souless enemy that can strike at any moment, they have a free license to do what they want -- whether that be bombing Cambodia, training death squads or occupying Iraq.

Geesh, just 6 months ago we were told that the Iraqis could launch a chemical strike against US troops in "45 minutes". Can't you see this is classic propaganda?

Yes, terrorism is a problem in the modern world and we should certainly take prudent steps to address this risk.

But the only "clear and present danger" is that US kids are dying every day while occupying a country where at least a significant proporton of the population don't want us.

Propaganda is propaganda! Let's not get fooled again.