"We must not waver," President Bush said last week of the Iraq conflict, echoing a sentiment offered 37 years ago by another president about a different conflict. "We will not grow weary," President Johnson said of the Vietnam War. Times, Bush acknowledges, have been tough lately for American and other coalition forces in Iraq. Perhaps inevitably, comparisons have been drawn to Vietnam.
| That's because there's never been another war, before or since... |
Both Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell have been asked recently whether they see the possibility of a Vietnam-style "quagmire" in Iraq. Says Powell, "We must not suddenly lose the energy needed for this task by dragging out old labels, such as, `This is Vietnam.'"
| Nor is it Roncesvalles, or Torres Vedras, or the Battle of New Orleans, or Gettysburg, or the Boer War... |
Bush is vowing to stay the course in Iraq, brushing aside growing skepticism about the wisdom of his policies. Johnson showed the same mettle as he tried to defend, at huge cost, a beleaguered South Vietnamese government amid widespread restiveness among Americans.
| Wow, man! That's scary! And you know what? The British public hated the Arthur Wellesly, because he was bogged down in Spain, with the Portuguese as allies and the only help the Spaniards could give was guerilla warfare, and Marshal Ney was gonna beat the crap out of him, and he called his troops "the scum of the earth" for being undisciplined... |
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., is calling the Iraq dilemma "Bush's Vietnam." There are no assurances that the United States will be able to leave Iraq with all goals accomplished. Bush can only hope that it doesn't become the debacle that Vietnam was.
| Actually, he can hope lots of other things. He can hope it's not as high in casualties as Tarawa. The Iraqis can hope that we don't do things to them that Hulagu did... |
Polls show that about 40 percent of Americans fear Iraq will become another Vietnam.
| What percentage fear it will become another Battle of Hastings? |
The president says the violence in Iraq is the work of a small minority that is thwarting the majority will. Johnson invoked that argument repeatedly during the Vietnam War.
| Oh, wow! Even more scary! I'll bet that's what Custer thought about Indians before the Little Big Horn... |
As was the case in Vietnam, U.S. forces are trying in Iraq to walk the thin line between winning hearts and minds and convincing the armed opposition that resistance is futile.
| I thought we were walking a thin line between winning hearts and minds and killing the losers? |
Scale is a major difference between the two conflicts. At the height of the Vietnam war, there were five times as many American troops in Vietnam as there are in Iraq. Death rates among U.S. forces in Iraq, even with recent increases, remain far below those in Vietnam in the late 1960s. For every U.S. soldier lost in Iraq so far, more than 80 died in Vietnam. Casualties from the 1968 communist Tet Offensive in Vietnam dwarfed the recent bloodletting in Fallujah. Also, Vietnam was mostly a clash of political ideologies. In Iraq, there are elements of a clash of civilizations.
And, unlike today's volunteer armed forces, many Americans who fought in Vietnam were draftees. The United States tried for 12 years in Vietnam but never achieved its major objective. In contrast, Saddam Hussein was ousted a mere 21 days after fighting began in Iraq.
| Too bad Saddam Hussein wasn't in charge of North Vietnam, huh? |
America's problem in Iraq is the postwar. Six months after major combat supposedly ended, Congress appropriated $69.6 billion for military operations and reconstruction aid for Iraq; post-conflict Vietnam didn't cost America a cent and claimed no American lives.
| Ummm... That's because we left. |
Bush says failure in Iraq is unthinkable. "Every friend of America in Iraq would be betrayed to prison and murder, as a new tyranny arose," Bush said last week. "Every enemy of America in the world would celebrate, proclaiming our weakness and decadence, and using that victory to recruit a new generation of killers." Johnson had a similar view of retreat from Vietnam. He feared that victory for the communists would lead quickly to falling dominoes among neighboring pro-American countries and give inspiration to enemies of the United States everywhere. The communists took power in Cambodia and Laos in 1975, along with South Vietnam, but they got no further in the region.
| What'm I missing here? Vietnam fell, and Laos and Cambodia both fell like dominoes. How much further were they supposed to get? When I left Thailand in 1972, the Thais were bumping off commies, and the Huks were still running around the Philippines. What they had going for them was that neither had a contiguous border with Vietnam, coupled with the fact that the Vietnamese were too busy "reeducating" people to pursue more foreign adventures. The political situation in China also had a stunting effect on the export of revolution business, as Chairman Mao eventually ground to his own halt in 1976. |
Johnson's goal in Vietnam was limited: defend South Vietnam. Bush's far more ambitious agenda for Iraq is to create a democracy for neighboring Arab countries to emulate. Will Americans have the patience needed to achieve that goal? In Vietnam, war weariness set in, and America was out. Vietnam forced Johnson into retirement; he shunned a re-election bid in 1968. His Democratic Party, fractured over Vietnam, lost the White House that November.
| It's been going downhill ever since... |
In contrast, retirement does not seem to have crossed Bush's mind. Fellow Republicans are largely united behind him as he seeks another four years in office.
| I think the populace is, too, except for dingbats who write stoopid articles like this. |
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