Having not lived through the Viet Nam conflict, I suppose I have some different viewpoints on warfare in general.
I’m curious about the difference in how you view the Iraqi insurgent versus the Viet Cong guerilla. They are both nonconventional fighters defending their country from American “intervention”.
So how do you view them as different? Or similar?
There are a lot of differences between the war in Vietnam and the war in Iraq, but you asked about the difference between Charlie and Achmed.
[ul][li]Charlie was Vietnamese, not Chinese, not Japanese, not Korean and not Philippine.[/li][li]Charlie had experience since he had just defeated the French.[/li][li]Charlie didn’t go by any rules, but he didn’t behead anyone or kidnap civilians.[/li][li]Charlie used coersion on some of his fellow countrymen, but he didn’t use suicide bombers to kill them.[/li][li]Charlie was probably religious, but that wasn’t involved in the fight.[/li][li]Charlie just wanted to go home, he wasn’t going to carry the fight to the US.[/li]Charlie would most likely have Achmed mumbling to himself “Don’t these guys ever quit?”[/ul]
Good reply. I take from it an aura of Charlie being more of a normal person defending their homeland, and our hypothetical Achmed being something of an extremist with an agenda? I don’t know if I agree with that fully, but there’s some bit of truth.
I’m not sure about the VC not attacking foreigners. They certainly were none too kind to the people they captured. I think the main difference there is that there were fewer foreigners in Viet Nam than there are in Iraq. The ones who were captured were frequently treated quite savagely, at least comparable to being beheaded.
And I should also note that alongside the VC were Chinese and other nations’ soldiers, just like there are outsiders fighting alongside Iraqi insurgents.
There should also be recognition that the Viet Cong are distinct from the North Vietnemese Army, the latter being hardcore professional soldiers which is something Iraq never had.
Posted by Zagadka
Cite please?
Um? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War
Not exactly hidden knowledge that the Vietnamese weren’t fighting alone…
You do know how wikipedia works don’t you?
Are you implying that evil Communists lurking in the Internet supplied false data to Wikipedia?
You are further implying that the Vietnamese conflict was contained entirely within North Viet Nam, with no assistance from other nations?
I’m just saying, if you believe everything you read in wikipedia…
You wanna buy a bridge?
But seriously…
If there were other people fighting beside the VC…their numbers were so small as to not have mattered.
The USSR provided substantial assistance to North Vietnam in the form of weapons, training, military advisors and technicians. There were limited numbers of North Korean and Soviet pilots in the VPAF. One of the aces of the air war was a Soviet instructor-pilot, Vadim Petrovich Shchbakov.
Let me restate my OP.
Another reason I brought up this thread was something we’re talking about in the “US soldier shoots Iraqi semi-POW” thread.
Most of the time, the VC were ununiformed (I say most of the time because I can’t say for sure that they didn’t have SOME kind of uniform). But anyway, they were so effective in large part due to their seamless blending in with the neutral or friendly Vietnamese. They were able to infiltrate deep into enemy (our) lines and conduct sabotage, bombings, shootings, and deliver supplies to guerilla groups.
The similarities between the VC and the Iraqi insurgents meet up pretty well to that point - ununiformed personell moving amongst the local population, very difficult to root out and find.
The main difference is that Viet Nam was fought largely outside of major cities, while Iraq is being fought in the streets of urban centers. In Viet Nam, we would napalm a field and not know if we killed farmers or VC or both. In Iraq, we smart bomb a mosque and not know if we killed civilians or insurgents or both.
When an American soldier sees a person, they don’t know immediately if they are a friend or enemy.
When they are captured, they don’t have legal status under the GC as soldiers (though this has more bearing today than it did in 1967 or so).
Both Iraq and Viet Nam were states invaded by the US nearly unilaterally (a rather weak coalition in both)
But what I’m looking for is the American social view of both groups. How are they different or similar? Is one more “human” than the other? How do their motives compare? Is one more hated? Etc etc
Heh…heh…heh…
Apparently Wickipedia engages in hotlinking. I went to their site earlier today and a photo they had apparently hotlinked to in order to illustrate an article on Fritz the Cat was actually the famous goatse photo. Right on their home page, too, for everyone to see! I wonder how long it was up before it was discovered it.
One factor in the Charlie/Achmed contrast: to a large degree, Charlie was drafted. The VC recruitment patterns eliminated a lot of the red tape of the Selective Service (two words that probably don’t mean anything to most of you and, God willing, never will…). They simply walked into the village, and picked out the men of the appropriate age.
Another factor: some of the guerillas in the VC were generational: their fathers and grandfathers had fought against the French, the Japanese, the French again, and then the Americans. They were hiding in tunnels their grandfathers had dug.
I think it highly unlikely that very many of the drafted VC knew a proletariat or a dialectic from their ass, and could have cared less. But, once again…two groups of young men who would rather be anywhere else on earth, killing each other.
Achmed, however, it must presumed, is motivated by either nationalism or religion, or some twisted pervo combination of both. Though the “nationalism” must be taken askance, their really isn’t any such nation as “Iraq”, nor is there likely to be. “Nationalism” in this context is more like a loathing of foreign invaders, most especially infidel foreign invaders. A great many Muslims see this whole conflict in a wildly oversimplified view: the US has declared war on Islam.
They’re wrong, of course. Not that it matters. We’re wrong, and we’re still there.
Although Charlie didn’t engage in beheadings, he did do some things that were as sick or worse. I recall that Charlie used to take kids and put live grenades in their hands and send them over to U.S. troops, who had the choice of either shooting the kids or being blown up by them.
I also heard of atrocities committed by Charlie against recalcitrant Vietnamese villagers. And of course, Kerry was absolutely right that U.S. troops committed atrocities against Vietnamese civilians.
If it were a war to the death in a neutral third party nation, I’d give it to Charlie. As someone already said, they’d have Achmed mumbling, “Don’t those guys ever quit?”
In these cases is seems to me that you are confusing Achmed the Iraqi native insurgent with Osama the terrorist. Achmed had no beef with us before we got there and while he may or may not stop fighting if/when the Americans leave will probably continue the violence in Iraq rather than export it. His specialty is hit and run raids, IED’s and mortar attacks, and blending into the population.
Achmed and Osama are two different enemies, working sort of together (though Osama is pissing Achmed and his countrymen off something fierce, if anecdotal evidence can be relied on)
Insurgents != terrorists (though there is no doubt overlap)
Wanting the US out of Iraq != wanting all Americans dead