Iraq=Vietnam? Is it that similar?

I constantly hear people on both sides of the issues brining up the similarities between the war in Iraq and Vietnam.

• If you think there are similarities, what are they, and do you think the war in Iraq will end the same way nam did? What makes you think this? Provide events/intel to back yourself up.
  
• If you don't think the situations are similar explain what we've learned since Vietnam that we're demonstrating on the ground in Iraq.

I personally think it is similar, but obviously less people are dying. I think the amount of people dying on both sides is at an equal ratio to that of Vietnam (but that's merely speculation from watching the coverage).

I also see the problems of handing over power to the Iraqis. This seems all too similar to our pullout strategy in Vietnam.

The guerrilla warfare, the lack of support for the war (increasing every day), and the roadside bombings seem all too familiar...on a smaller scale.

[jcgadfly]

There are other similarities.

The gross underestimations of the opponent. Westmoreland's miscounting of troop strength in Vietnam and Rumsfeld's claim that the Iraqis would greet their "liberators" with flowers and dancing in the streets.

Vietnam vets were told to get stuffed by the government. The vets in Bush's war are being told the same thing (no benefits, no honors unless you're a decent looking white girl, etc)

In some ways, it's actually worse. At least we got to see coffins coming home during Vietnam and Presidents attended funerals for the troops. Not so with this media and "President".

[Mr.Vicchio]

No. SOrry Vietnam was a police action we didn't fight to win.

Iraq is a tottlay diffent situation.

[Ross]

If Iraq isn't a police action, then what is it?!

[Catch 22]

I don't see the similarities because the situation is much more different from Vietnam. In Vietnam we were fighting on the behalf of a client state against both highly organized guerillas and an enemy state. In Iraq we're not fighting on the behalf of anyone but ourselves, and the enemy is not a state or a guerilla army but a shady group of various political factions that oppose US presence. With this in mind our occupation of Iraq sounds less like Vietnam and more like the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

[Utah]

We won nearly every military conflict in Vietnam, but we lost the war back home. As long as we don't get in the habit of attacking and sitting for two weeks for a cease-fire agreement and allowing them to resupply, it won't be another vietnam.

Originally posted by Mr.Vicchio,+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Mr.Vicchio,)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>No. SOrry Vietnam was a police action we didn't fight to win. Iraq is a tottlay diffent situation.[/b]

ahahaha...are you kidding? We didn't fight to win? What does that mean? If you don't fight to win, why fight? We pussied out, and said it wasn't really a war because we lost to an Asian country (and to communism).

Also, we have not declared war, nor has the UN legally given us permission to invade Iraq, so I don't see how Iraq is really different. Care to explain this?

<!--QuoteBegin-Utah.
We won nearly every military conflict in Vietnam, but we lost the war back home. As long as we don't get in the habit of attacking and sitting for two weeks for a cease-fire agreement and allowing them to resupply, it won't be another vietnam.[/quote]

Every conflict? Did we only count the official ones then? This was people movement that resisted occupation. Or, as many have said: The North Vietnamese were nationalists before they were communists.
I think the same issue is in Iraq. I think many of the people there view us as occupiers (especially because we're white/christian). I don't think it's just a small group of factions and insurgents. The Viet Cong, like the Iraqis, appeared to be mere civilians.

[GreatWyrm of Babylon]

I do not recall asking us to intervene.

[Milton Bradley]

In response to DotComa.


We did not fight the Vietnam war to win. The Navy Seal tactics, which actually worked, were only used to snatch people from their ranks for interogation. The Commanders were more responsive to political pressure than to battlefield pressures, and they responded accordingly.


I think one could argue that Vietnam was nothing more thatn weapons testing, to see if we were keeping up with the Soviets, and also a wonderful way to get rid of a lot of surplus WW II munitions that were aging, and needed to be used, or destroyed.


Vietnam was when the East showed the West that they had mastered guerilla warfare, and that they needed an entire new doctrine for war. THe Navy Seals answed that call, bbut politcos prevented them from carrying out the tactics that were proven to work.


As always, a real world answer, to a political problem.

[Mr.Vicchio]

We didn't fight to win. We faught the war from Washington. It was a disaster. Every time our troops COULD step up and fight the right way, we kicked ass. Then the jerks in Washington would pull them back. It was a joke.

[tusaki]

Vietnam is different, 500 body bags per week is something else than 700 dead overall.

But, in a sense it might be the same. During vietnam, studies which showed the the futility and uselessness of fighting that war were muffled away because they didn't fit the current political agenda. No doubt the same is happening now. Also, this is more of a quagmire than Vietnam, because the US must stay in Iraq to play police when there are multiple factions just waiting for an opportunity to slit each others throat. The only thing they have in common right now is that they 'hate the american infidels' and are trying to get rid of them. But the US has to stay in iraq because it is strategically important and we can't allow terrorists to get their hands on the oil-wealth of iraq.

[floridian]

Didn't fight Vietnam to win?? We dropped more ordinance on Vietnam than was dropped by all countries in all of WWII. We had assassination teams take out thousands of suspected VC and VC sympathizers. We used persistent herbicides to defoliate much of Vietnam's forests. Over a million people died. The idea that we didn't fight to win reminds me of what PeeWee Herman said after going over the handlebars of his bike and rolling summersaults: "I meant to do that." America is a superpower, but has limited military strength, especially in close quarters. "Didn't really try" is a rationalization to explain our loss. It is the rationalization of those who won't face the facts that our power to control other people is limited.

Vietnam saw 500 US dead per week, but not at the begining. In a side by side comparison, the losses in Iraq are outpacing those in Vietnam for the first two years. But a direct comparison is not very useful - we waded into Vietnam, while we made a more calculated entry into Iraq.

Navy Seal tactics may have been effective, but special forces can only play a limited role. By definition, special forces are composed of extraordinary men on unusual missions.

On the original question. I think Iraq is more like Lebanon, but it isn't clear how things will play out. There are some indications that a US pull out is being planned. The most significant thing about Iraq is the failure of the vision put forth by neoconservatives in the Project for a New American Century (including V.P. Cheney, Wolfowitz, Abrams, Rumsfeld, Bauer, Bennett and Forbes). Their plans to use military intervention to reshape the Middle East and the world have failed. The US has stretched its military to the limits in the first stage of the plan, and their theories on the ability to wage hi-tech war with very small forces have been shown to be unrealistic. Occupying Iraq will take more troops than are available, and planned action against Syria and Iran would require a military draft. There may be precision bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities, but their grand plan isn't going to work.

[Impenitent]

we fought ww2 to win... remember how that ended?

we did not fight vietnam to win, we pulled out... " We dropped more ordinance on Vietnam than was dropped by all countries in all of WWII." ... who told you that load of bs? we dropped more on nagasaki alone than in all of vietnam... if we really wanted to get rid of the vietnamese and establish a government like we did in japan, we could have dropped another fat man, but we didn't...

we did not fight vietnam to win... but we will stay in iraq until we have set up a new iraqi government just as we did in germany and japan...

you are correct to a point, you do need troops on the ground to occupy captured territory after we raze everything on the ground... we will have them... iraq needs to be divided into at least 3 states... but kerry has promised to continue the war as well... their grand plan is working

[floridian]

>> who told you that load of bs?

The total tonnage of bombs dropped over North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos came to about 8 million (about four times the tonnage used in all of WWII)

http://home.earthlink.net/~aircommando1/Vietnam.htm

As US troops were being withdrawn, Nixon stepped up the use of US air and naval power. From 1969 to the end of 1971, the US had dropped 3.3 million tons of bombs on South Vietnam, North Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, more than Johnson had dropped in five years and more than the US had dropped on Europe and the Pacific in World War II.

http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections....ticle&artid=614

Altogether, the explosive power of the bombs dropped by the U.S. on Vietnam was four times that dropped by the U.S. in all of WWII, or the equivalent of 640 Hiroshimas.

Review of A History of Bombing book by Sven Lundquist, reviewed at: http://prague.tv/pill/article.php?name=bombing

[floridian]

>> but kerry has promised to continue the war as well... their grand plan is working

A moderate Republican Administration would have never started down the path mapped out by the PNAC. A moderate Democratic Administration won't continue to implement the grand plan. You are right that Kerry is not a dove's dove. But simply pulling out could be another mistake.

The German and Japanese occupation models are as misplaced as the Vietnam/Iraq comparisons. In Germany & Japan, there was a coherent national identity. In the case of Germany, the country collapsed militarily and economically. In the case of Japan, the Emperor surrendered and cooperated with the occupation. Iraq without a leader is starting to look like Yugoslavia in the early 1980s. Having a foreign enemy has kept them from being at each other's throats, but a civil war is possible.

Your idea about partitioning Iraq into 3 countries has merit, as the national identity seems to be much weaker than the tension between the 3 main groups.

But partitioning has its own risks. Turkey, Iran, Georgia and Syria will sh it bricks if there is an independent Kurdish state. Turkey has already threatened to invade any Kurdistan-like country. Ethnic cleansing is possible, as there are no borders that will cleanly separate the 3 groups. Fighting over territory is likely. Iranian influence with a small Shiite state will be much greater than with a unified Iraq. And a future dictator of any of the 3 states might feel justified in invading the other 2 to reconstitute greater Iraq which was illegitemately carved up by foreigners.

[Impenitent]

Originally posted by floridian, >> who told you that load of bs? http://home.earthlink.net/~aircommando1/Vietnam.htm http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections....ticle&artid=614 Review of A History of Bombing book by Sven Lundquist, reviewed at: http://prague.tv/pill/article.php?name=bombing

I stand corrected...

[Impenitent]

Originally posted by floridian, >> but kerry has promised to continue the war as well... their grand plan is working A moderate Republican Administration would have never started down the path mapped out by the PNAC. A moderate Democratic Administration won't continue to implement the grand plan. I would be happier with Kerry if he were more critical of the war, but extricating ourselves won't be fun or easy. Simply pulling out could be another mistake.

moderate? who the f.ck wants a wishy washy moderate... bush is a leader and is taking the fight to them where it needs to be taken...

the party of the impeached liar will bring back the draft and amplify the engagement but try to win hearts and minds and stop fighting the war... bush just wants to kill the offenders and the hearts and minds will follow

pulling out would be a huge mistake... right now the fight is there... would you be happier if the us turned into israel? homicide bombers here? no thanks...

[Sodfather]

If I could return back to the "we didn't fight to win" comment and all those uninformed people who replied that that comment was foolish...

The war wasn't meant to be won in the traditional sense. Thu U.S. viewed a win in Viet Nam as a stalemate, thus coercing Uncle Ho into giving up eventually. The amount of troops shipped to Nam were only that number calculated by the cabinet to be required to acheive a stalemate. The advantages of trying to stalemate the NVA was less troops required to accomplish the same goal--halting Communism.

[m3talsmith]

Originally posted by Impenitent, >>the party of the impeached liar will bring back the draft and amplify the engagement but try to win hearts and minds and stop fighting the war... bush just wants to kill the offenders and the hearts and minds will follow.

Hate to tell you this, but not only are the hearts and minds not following, but Bush is hiring members for the select service board as we speak: either winner is going to call for a draft. It's the only logical way to continue the war. Especially since most vets from there are railing against the war, the moral is piss poor, and the defense is shoddy as hell (my cousin just got his arm blown off a week ago; they sewed it back on but he can only move his forefinger and middle: At least he can give a big fuck to to his superiors now).

And can you blame the people who want to be be free (aka insurgents) from having their children shot in the back of the head, or seeing there grandmother shot under a flag of truce. Or maybe they just want to be able to decide how they should run their government, instead of having the US tell them how they should run it.

[Impenitent]

Originally posted by m3talsmith,+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (m3talsmith,)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin-Impenitent, >>the party of the impeached liar will bring back the draft and amplify the engagement but try to win hearts and minds and stop fighting the war... bush just wants to kill the offenders and the hearts and minds will follow.

Hate to tell you this, but not only are the hearts and minds not following, but Bush is hiring members for the select service board as we speak: either winner is going to call for a draft. It's the only logical way to continue the war.

-yes I know... but the hearts and minds bit is what the other party wants, bush just wants to destroy everything...

Especially since most vets from there are railing against the war, the moral is piss pooraccording to the leftwing propagandists, and the defense is shoddy as hell (my cousin just got his arm blown off a week ago; they sewed it back on but he can only move his forefinger and middle: At least he can give a big fuck to to his superiors now).

-I am truly sorry to hear about his loss

And can you blame the people who want to be be free (aka insurgents) from having their children shot in the back of the head, or seeing there grandmother shot under a flag of truce. Or maybe they just want to be able to decide how they should run their government,

-maybe they want to install the next ayatollah or some other religious dictator... we will not allow that...

instead of having the US tell them how they should run it.[/b][/quote]