Is Iraq Vietnam? Ask Those Who Know.

[darrels joy]

Is Iraq Vietnam? Ask Those Who Know.
That Iraq is "another Vietnam" was a clich? long before the U.S.-led coalition even liberated Baghdad, but lately the drumbeat has become louder and more tired than ever. A Google News search for "Iraq" and "Vietnam" turns up more than 6,500 articles in the past month; this piece from Bloomberg News is typical:

An unreliable ally in a U.S.-led war against guerrillas, declining public support at home and lack of a coherent exit strategy: That was Vietnam 35 years ago, and it increasingly seems to fit Iraq today.

Is Iraq really similar to Vietnam? Only in the sense that some in politics and the media would like to see America lose. That is to say, much of the Vietnam talk we've been hearing is wishful thinking. As Andrew Sullivan wrote in July 2003:

There's an under-current of complete gloom in news reports that seems to me to be more fueled by ideological fervor than sober analysis. Given the magnitude and complexity of the task of rebuilding post-Saddam Iraq, it seems to me we're making slow but decent progress. The lack of a complete social implosion or exploding civil war is itself a huge achievement. And no one said the post-war reconstruction was going to be easy.

So what's behind this drumbeat of apocalypse? I think it's a good rule among boomer journalists that every story they ever edit or write or film about warfare will at some point be squeezed into a Vietnam prism.

But here's one honorable exception. Last week USA Today asked people who would actually know if Iraq is "another Vietnam": Vietnam veterans now serving in Iraq:

If there are parallels between Iraq and Vietnam, these graying soldiers and the other Vietnam veterans serving here offer a unique perspective. They say they are more optimistic this time: They see a clearer mission than in Vietnam, a more supportive public back home and an Iraqi population that seems to be growing friendlier toward Americans.

"In Vietnam, I don't think the local population ever understood that we were just there to help them," says Chief Warrant Officer James Miles, 57, of Sioux Falls, S.D., who flew UH-1H Hueys in Vietnam from February 1969 to February 1970. And the Vietcong and North Vietnamese were a tougher, more tenacious enemy, he says. Instead of setting off bombs outside the base, they'd be inside.

"I knew we were going to lose Vietnam the day I walked off the plane," says Miles, who returned home this month after nearly a year in Iraq. Not this time. "There's no doubt in my mind that this was the right thing to do," he says. . . .

1st Sgt. Patrick Olechny, 52, of Marydel, Del., an attack helicopter crew chief and door gunner in Vietnam from March 1971 to February 1972, says the most important difference to him is the attitude of the American public.

"Vietnam was an entirely different war than this one," he says. The basic job of flying helicopters is the same, but the overall mission now is clear when it wasn't then. "We thought in Vietnam we were doing the right thing, and in the end it didn't seem that way," he says.

Now, "the people in the United States respect what the soldiers are doing," says Olechny, who still fills in at the door gunner position when he can get away from his administrative duties.

Browning, recently back from two weeks of R&R in the USA, says he was overwhelmed by the reception he got stateside: More than a hundred people met the airplane to help the soldiers and wish them well. "I can't tell you what, as a Vietnam vet, that means to me," he said.

What mystifies us is why some politicians think defeatism is a winning political strategy. That didn't work last year, and it didn't work even during Vietnam.
opinionjournal.com

[39mto39g]

Vietnam is over by Thiland and Cambodia, Iraq is by Iran ,not the sme place.

Ron

[Bill Farnie]

Vietnam ..... With a few exceptions, primarily jungle warfare

Iraq ?.. primarily urban warfare

I understand what these reports are trying to imply: quagmire, no clear cut military strategy etc. and some similarities can be drawn concerning fighting an counter ? insurgency type of war but that?s as far as it goes being similar.

[SuperScout]

Consider the very topmost civilian-military leadership skill sets and mindsets of our current time vs. what we suffered under during the Vietnam war. Better yet, don't take my word for it, but read a highly praised book, "Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies the Led to Vietnam." If you don't want to, or have not the time to read it, than I encourage to read the review, printed in the "Army" the magazine of the Association of the United States Army, March 2005 issue. Here's just the first paragraph:

"As is evident by the publication of Robert S. McNamara's "In Retrospect," the Vietnam War still haunts us. In what is likely to become the most controversial examination of civil-military relations during the period 1963-65, H. R. McMaster has produced a provocative analysis that sheds the veil of secrecy that dominated Lyndon B. Johnson's decision-making process. In so doing, he paints a disturbing portrait of McNamara and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), particularly Gen.Maxwell D. Taylor. If a historian's job is to challenge the conventions of history, however, McMaster succeeds admirably in exploring the ineffectual role of the Joint Chiefs..."

After reading the book, I came to a much better understanding of how the ineptitude of LBJ, coupled with the spineless behavior of some of our senior military were the primary cause for 58,000+ names being where they are. That Holy Wall is their damning legacy.

[BLUEHAWK]

- The enemy is killing and maiming far more of their own people than they are of ours.

- There was no oil in Vietnam.

- The enemy is generic Terrorism, not Communism.

- Vietnam had not attacked and murdered 3000+ of our citizens within our continental boundaries.

- The enemy will not meet us face to face on a field of battle, in or out of uniform.

- Russia nor Red China are, to my knowledge, bankrolling and supplying our enemy this time.

[SuperScout]

There is one similarity between the war in Vietnam and the war in Iraq (and Afghanistan, and anywhere else we may want to take it to the enemy), and this is the consistently anti-military stance taken by the press. Certainly not all can or should be painted by this brush, but enough of them to constitute a majority of reports coming out of the warzones. Just as we had the onerous burden of providing events for Walter Cronkite, today, there are his clones, reporting on how badly things are going (in their own eyes), with their own particular and peculiar agenda. I continue to get reports from first-hand sources in Iraq, and am continually amazed at their stories, vs. what the mainstream media reports. Makes me wonder if the reporters ever get out of their hotels, or just sit around and tell each other lies and war stories.