Actually they are comparable in several ways. True, this is not a “cold war” proxy war, as Viet Nam was or even the former Soviet Union’s involvement in Afghanistan was.
Both Iraq and Viet Nam were conflicts were the ideological doctrine was better developed than the strategic objective.
Viet Nam had, Communist domination of Asia, Red menace, and the Domino theory.
Iraq has, Axis of evil, State sponsored terrorism, Middle East domination by radical Islamic fundamentalists.
Both were/are fought as conflicts of limited engagements. Wars of limited engagements require deployments and resource allocations for decades if any of the limited and constantly changing objectives are to be sustained for any period of time, or they end in a strategic defeat.
The first conflict that the US entered, as a war of limited engagement, was Korea. It has been over 50 years since a truce was signed, not an armistice, not a peace treaty, a truce, a prolonged cease-fire. We still have troops there and maintain a sizable readily deployed forces in the event the truce should be broken. If we were to leave Korea, and it became apparent that we would not redeploy there, South Korea would be annexed by the north in a matter of weeks or months. If the Soviet Union is anything to go by we will achieve “victory” in Korea when the north implodes, probably in another 5-20 years.
Viet Nam was the second limited-engagement war we fought in. After signing the treaty of Paris, in January 1973 ending the war, and withdrawing our ground combat forces it took lees than 24 months for South Viet Nam to collapse.
The end to a war in which we never lost a battle, do you think the current Iraqi government would survive even a year if we left Iraq? Even without aid from surrounding states I doubt they would make it as long as South Viet Nam did, and we were there helping the South to become self sustaining for over 10 years.
Both Viet Nam and Iraq relied upon debatable assertions from our government to precipitate the deployment of troops.
Viet Nam had the attack on the destroyer Mattox, or the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Which is now general believed not to have even occurred.
Iraq had WMDs, nuclear, biological, and chemical programs, plus links to Al Qaeda. Which have yet to be confirmed and are appearing to be convenient misinterpretations if not fabrications of intelligence.
Both have generated stories of abuse, these incidents do not happen because we are sadists, they happen because of the frustrations of our troops. Our troops have won the battles, but they need a had a plan to win the war, and we do not have one for Iraq any more than we did for Viet Nam
While there are differences, to be sure, between Viet Nam and Iraq, our patterns of behavior are reminiscent. The shadow of political expediency lays upon this war just as it did on Viet Nam, and I feel a growing sense of foreboding that the results will be similar, the only solace is that we do not have near the casualties, as in Viet Nam, yet and the country is not as torn apart as it was. However that could change, Johnson did not cut and run either and Bush seems to have adopted his war policy as a model. The neo-cons like Perle, Wolfowitz, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, remind me a lot of the “whiz kids”, like McNamara, that Johnson surrounded himself with.
Life is no joke but funny things happen
jon
