It seems to me that there is considerable questioning of the propriety of our current involvement in Iraq, as well as the success of our actions there and in Afghanistan.
I was born in 1960, so I don’t really recall firsthand any public debate during much of the Viet Nam war. But at some point, antiwar sentiment grew huge, both domestically an worldwide.
Do any of you have recollections or opinions of the level of criticism of our current military actions, as opposed to Viet Nam or other prior military actions?
I know that having been in Viet Nam, Gulf War 1, and countless other actions over the past few decades, with the end of the cold war, etc., popular sentiment is different than what it was in the 60s and 70s. And I make no pretense of trying to equate the losses we have incurred in Iraq with those suffered in Indochina.
But, again, the level of criticism I hear - not only on these boards, but in mainstream new outlets as well - strikes me as surprisingly high. Yet we do not see people marching in the streets.
How real is this criticism I perceive? Will it grow into something more powerful, or will the public lose interest and contentedy re-elect Bush while distracted by something else?
I also guess there is the chance that SOMETHING will be uncovered or SOME successes will be gained that will make the recent invasion seem warranted. So it may well be too early to predict what the course of history will be. But I welcome any of you who are willing to put forth an early line.
I think the media is far too well managed (manipulated? subserviant? I’m not sure if these words are too strong) to allow a similar deterioration in public opinion.
Sometimes I think we have entered the area of repeat a lie often enough and it’ll magically become ‘true’ to the population at large
The big differences are both the lack of conscription and an oppositional counter-culture currently and nothing like the body count of US soldiers.
The similarity might be the USA/UK finding it difficult to get out and leave a friendly govenment in place. The USA effectively had to abandon it’s client state in the southern portion of Vietnam to get out behind the fig-leaf of “vietnamisation”.
Another similarity might be the allies lack of comprehension of the country they’re in and of the will of a people to resist if the lack of understanding or the perception that the goals of the allies are not consonant with those of sections of the Iraqi people leads them to view them as occupiers.
And of course - as in Vietnam, every killing will create many more new enemies.
As a Forward Observer for 81 mortars 2nd Battalion, Fifth Marine Regiment,1st MarDiv from Jan 1968 to November 1970, I don’t need to learn anything about my history. I lived it. Cite please.
I think the “every killing creates new enemies” line is at least ambiguous enough to warrant explanation and/or support.
The line I always heard from VN - including very recently on these boards I think - was “You kill 10 of us, we will kill one of you, and it is you who will grow tired of it.”
Well first of all, Vietnam was a very diferent war from the current situation in Iraq. In Vietnam, we were fighting to prevent the collapse of an unpopular regime, in Iraq, we have collapsed the regime and are trying to restore a stable government.
We also don’t have to contend with another country actively trying to take over Iraq or worry about another superpower getting involved.
So basically, Iraq is Vietnam without North Vietnam, ARVN, the USSR or jungles.
Of course, if we had instituted the draft again and we started to see bodies come home b the thousands, public support would wane pretty quick.
What is there to understand about Iraq? I’m sure it’s just like any other country. People get pissed off when foreign soldiers search their homes. People get angry when they have no hot water or electricity. Given the choice, most people would rather live quiet, boring lives than be guerillas. There’s no magic trick to understanding a foreign culture. Governments get into trouble when they expect people not to react like normal people.
I was of draft age during the Vietnamese War. I was a relatively mild anti-war person at Berkeley during the heyday of the Free Speech Movement.
It has been observed that much of the criticism of Gulf War II is similar to criticism of Vietnam. The similarity is in the critics’ minds. They are looking at Gulf War II through the lens of Vietnam, even though the two wars are incredibly different. [ul][li]Vietnam went on for a decade; Iraq was a comple of months. []Vietnam had massive numbers of American casualties; Iraq had relatively few. []We lost in Vietnam; we won in Iraq. The US had never been attacked in Vietnam; we were attacked on 9/11. (Note that most Americans see Iraq as a part of the War on Terrorism.)[/ul] [/li][quote]
Will it grow into something more powerful, or will the public lose interest
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The public can’t lose interest in the Iraq criticism, because they never even became interested in it. It’s just some anti-Bush folks looking for something to bitch and whine about.
I hope Bush will be elected, but there’s no need to distract people from Iraq. It’s a plus on his resume, in the minds of a big majority of Americans.
Uh, we have overthrown an evil regime that practiced widespread, barbaric torture, and which killed millions of people in the wars it started. The recent discovery of nuclear-related apparatus and plans make it clear that Iraq still harbored nuclear ambitions. Those two factors make our winning the war seem like a pretty valable victory.
Where the two situations ARE similar, I think, is in a perception amongst a significant fraction of the public that the US had no compelling rationale for fighting a war there, and/or that the military action was somehow being taken for political or economic reasons that had less to with the security of the nation than some (ill-defined) benefit of a narrow elite. The ‘military-industrial complex’ in the case of 'Nam, Big Oil in the case of Iraq.
Actually, we did see such, and in considerable numbers, prior to the launching of the most recent war. That the marching has not continued I put down mainly to the rapid ‘conclusion’ of the conflict, the low body count, and non-conscript nature of the current military. If this is still a static occupation with no real progress towards disengagement after several years, I would expect to see protests increase.
Correction: Jan “68” to Nov “69” including 4 months with a CAG (Civic Action Group) Unit.
The rules were simple. We ruled the day. The VC/NVA ruled the night. Whenever one caught the other exposed you killed as many as you could. The Vietnamese were caught in the middle and they,like all people,wanted only to tend their fields and raise their families in peace. We swept their villages during the daylight and the “recruiters” came at night to take their sons away. There was plenty of hate to go around for both sides.
“You kill 10 of us, we will kill one of you, and it is you who will grow tired of it.” That’s what our enemies learned from Vietnam. Not from the jungles and rice paddies but from the streets of San Francisco and Washington DC. Copies of “Blackhawk Down” weren’t found all over Iraq because it had “cool” special effects. Read this interview with Bin Laden: http://www.esquire.com/features/articles/2001/010913_mfe_binladen_1.html
History tells us that “Remember the Maine” and Tonkein Gulf were pretty much intentional falsehoods in order to justify military involvent. At the very least, they were insufficient justification for the military action that ensued in their name. (Please feel free to correct me with citations if I am wrong.)
Now it seems as though the administration may have been - at the very least - somewhat less than forthright in its presentation of the evidence they claimed required action at this time.
In the long run, will the public care if it turns out they were deceived, manipulated, or misled? Or will they simply accept that that is what American governments do when they want to go to war, and resort to evaluating whether the ends justifies the means?
Depends on how many more lives are wasted there, and over how long a period. The Vietnam protests didn’t get well under way for years after Tonkin Gulf.
I think I agree. But, I was under the impression that the fiction of TG was not understood until significantly later. And I may be wrong, but do not believe the majority of VN protests were over TG.
I think you’re right, Dinsdale. It was the Cold War; there was strong public sentiment for fighting Communism wherever it reared its ugly head, and NV was identifiably Communist for whatever that was worth. I don’t think TG ever really mattered much to anyone but Wayne Morse; the protests were over the wasting of lives in an unwinnable situation simply to avoid admitting a colossal mistake. That’s the lesson we need to keep in mind, seems to me.
Are you seriously stating that the media have prevented the occurance of more or longer anti-war demonstrations? Come on. People aren’t stupid. The organizors of the anti-war protests could hardly be called timid.
One other difference is that there were a number of people in the US who would have cheered to have a Communist gov’t in Vietnam. S.H. did not have a single sympathizer here (well, maybe one or two…).
“On the other hand, if we go in [to Iraq] unilaterally, or without the full weight of international organizations behind us, if we go in with a very sparse number of allies, if we go in without an effective information operation that takes us through the – and explains the motives and purposes and very clear aims and the ability to deal with the humanitarian and post-conflict situation, we’re liable to super-charge recruiting for al Qaeda.”
General Wesley Clark, before the Armed Services Committee, 9/23/02
(Recipient of Silver Star and Purple Heart for actions in Vietnam, former CINC of Southcom and CINC of Eucom/Supreme Allied Commander.)