I noticed that everytime a comparison to Vietnam was mentioned in this board that even anti-Bush americans tended to dismiss it outright. I thought it was strange since the similarities were growing… Of course the comparison can hardly be direct. Different times, countries, people and politics. Still the same bad mix of politics, cold war mentality and military quagmire seem to be coming together.
I honestly don’t see the comparison, except that there is fighting going on, people are dieing, and the US is involved. Also, Vietnam has an I in it and so does Iraq. After that, you are reaching IMO.
Differences off the top of my head:
We never really invaded the North, or put real troops on the ground there. We basically tried to contain the situation and fought mostly (as far as the main ground war goes) in South Vietnam.
The fighting in Vietnam we did were mostly from VC and from the North Vietnam regular army. In Iraq, I’d say that, asside from some ‘foriegn fighters’, mostly its home grown resistance. I think for the most part, the South Vietnamese were either against the North Vietnamese or appathetic, but thats just my general impression.
Resources. One of the big reasons the North was able to even fight as long as it did was the constant influx of material from outside sourcse (USSR and China) of high tech weapons and advisors and such. Everything from the anti-aircraft missile systems to weapons, ammo, money, etc. In Iraq, I think that the resistance is basically using the scattered toys left behind when the main army folded. I seriously doubt any major power is going to stick out its neck and pony up either money or additional weapons to the Iraqi resistance.
Lets face it…in comparison to the daily firefights with the VC and regular NVA, the Iraqi resistance so far has been fairly weak. Sure, we’ve lose some men almost daily, but the RATE we are losing them (the exception being the destruction of the helicopter killing 15 I think) has been pretty small. If that rate holds, even for a decade, we won’t lose nearly as many troops as we did in Vietnam…not even close. And thats not likely to happen anyway (i.e. that the Iraqis will hold out for a decade at even their current level of resistance) unless the Iraqis get some serious outside assistance…they simply CAN’T maintain anything but a low level conflict for an extended period of time. The North Vietnamese on the other hand, as a nation in its own right, with a vast pool of man power, and outside assistance, COULD keep up a fairly high level of conflict for a long period of time.
UN approval. From what I remember, the US was requested by the UN to assist in South Vietnam (I could be wrong here…Vietnam isn’t an area I’m even more than passingly familiar with). Certainly the US did NOT have even that for its Iraq adventure.
The US never really thought that Vietnam was essential, strategically speaking (i.e. they had no product or resource we really HAD to have, to the best of my knowledge). It was just a place to make a stand and stop the dominos from falling, or whatever they were deluding themselves about. But we never REALLY committed to the fight there. More like we backed in slowly, gradually getting more and more enmeshed as we got in deeper and deeper. Iraq though IS stategically vital not only to the US but to the world, as it has a resource thats vital.
Central figure and ideal. Afaik, there is no central figure or ideal motivating the Iraqi resistance. No great leader, no ideal of a better way of life after the struggle…its simply resistance to an invader and probably a healthy dose of anger, resentment and out and out hatred of the US. Until and unless there is some kind of binding theme to their resistance, it will remain a sore spot to the US…but nothing more. If a great leader and central ideal ever DOES manifest itself, then things might heat up for a time, but again without some kind of outside assistance, I doubt the Iraqis really have much of a chance. The North Vietnamese though, WITH all those things, actually won in the end.
Anyway, those are the key differences that spring to my mind, off the top of my head. I’m no expert on the Vietnam war, or even really deeply knowledgable about it to be honest, but it seems that there really isn’t much comparison between the two conflicts. I know that some of our really knowledgable posters will chime in and give some better details and such.
Oh, just thought of something else. The US military. In Vietnam it was a conscription army, poorly equiped, trained and lead (IMO). They were still using the questionable doctorine of stategic air power, the Navy’s role had been reduced due to infighting between the Air Force and Navy, armored forces weren’t deployed in any kinds of numbers, and I think that tactics used were still being developed for things like air cav and such…it was definitely a learning process, and a painful one. The troops themselves were not what you would call highly motivated either, and I think moral was always fairly low (this is just speculation on my part though).
The modern US military is all volunteer, highly trained, fairly well motivated, equiped with the best weapons systems in the world, and (for the most part) well lead. There is no comparison between todays US military and the military that was deployed in Vietnam. In addition, I don’t think there is much comparison between the battle hardened and totally committed fighters of North Vietnam who had fought (and beat) the Japanese, French, etc, and what we just saw in Iraq.
I think XT provided a good summary. Actually, the BBC article doesn’t provide any substative basis for the comparison. Seems more like an attention grabbing headline than anything else.
One other difference: The Vietnam war was begun under a Democratic administration. Since it was ended (if you can call it an ending) under the Republicans, let’s hope the parallel is not a shameful defeat and retreat under the Democrats.
Ironically, McCain is on the Leher report as I write talking about how the Vietnam/Iraq comparison is a weak one. He should know.
We are fighting two wars at once, here. Any military man will tell you this is NOT a good idea, no matter HOW big and powerful you are.
…but the people in charge are politicians, not military. We’re spread thinner than the REAL soldiers would like, but no one is asking them, or listening.
We are mired in at least ONE war that the American people are starting to question rather heavily, a war that no one asked US if we wanted, or thought was a good idea.
I personally see quite a FEW parallels, although I’ll freely admit they ain’t the same war.
It’s more complex than that. Many many SV people deeply hated the colonialists whose side we were, ostensibly, on. Sometimes this translated into hatred of us, sometimes not, but the fact was, it wasn’t like we were liberating the SV from the threat of dictators. We were defending the dictators we liked so that dictators we didn’t like wouldn’t take over.
Given that we already control Iraq, and there are no major miltary engagements going on, I can’t see how the situations could be LESS useful as comparisons. The only really meaningful comparison is simply the issue of whether Americans will long put up with a mounting US death toll. But even there, this is a very different situation. The mission in Iraq seems a great deal more worthwhile than Vietnam ever could have, even if you did buy the domino theory.
I’m American and anti-Bush, largely because of Iraq. I think drawing any real parallels between Iraq and Vietnam at this point is seriously stretching it. The opposition in Iraq would have to become greater by many orders of magnitude before a fair comparison could be drawn. From the first days of US involvement, it was fighting battalion and regimental sized guerilla units in Vietnam, something that doesn’t exist in Iraq. xtisme summed it up pretty well. There are only two things that I’d disagree with. One is that there was a good deal of support for the Viet Cong in the South, prior to the Tet Offensive in 1968 the majority of the NLF forces in the south were Viet Cong. After the losses in Tet, the majority shifted to being NVA. The other is that the US military that went into Vietnam in 1965 was well equipped, highly motivated and well lead; it was the 8 years of fighting a seemingly unending war with public support dropping that caused the corrosion of morale and motivation.
A comparison to the Philippines is a bit more apt, though in the Philippines the US goal was to overtly make the islands a colonial possession with some talk of independence at some indeterminate date in the future.
Whats a fundamental necessity of any conflict you wish to fight? Answer: Objective. In South Vietnam the objectives constantly changed, and the rules applying were also dynamic. From Kennedy to Nixon, from advising against an invasion to fighting insurrectionists.
We aren’t fighting a limb of an enemy and pretending it is not part of the vast Communist enterprise (as in Vietnam). We are fighting a war on terror and instability. Toppling the criminals and people that prevent the safe sleep and work of our citizens. This is all-out war, and has been acheived with a phenominally paltry amount of time and lack of support from “allies”.
There are no left-wing procrasinators (LBJ). We aren’t lying to ourselves about the vastness of the enemy. There are only hawks, doing the best job they can and are trained to do.
Those who stand in our way are our enemies…I guess you isolationist history haters can just stand aside and sleep soundly, warm and safe, and declare your hate in the morning.
The Vietnamese didn’t pick a fight with the USA. They had no reason to like us, but the only reason they were fighting us is because we were there.
The same is true of Iraq. Saddam Hussein had not threatened the USA. He had not the means to threaten the USA, even if he had wished to. However tyrannical he may have been, he was no more tyrannical than any of a number of tin pot dictators we have supported in the past. Our liberationist virtue is freshly minted, you can still smell the wet paint.
In both instances, we could have avoided conflict by the simple expedient of leaving them the fuck alone.
I agree. But I think the point of the OP is to compare the two situations during the war stage, not before. The fact is, we are in Iraq and it would be foolish to leave. The question is: how similar is this to Vietnam? The answer seems to be: not very.
I suppose the answer to that would be: “because then the whole Iraq venture will just have been an expensive and embarrassing fuck-up that achieved no useful purpose, didn’t make things better, and quite possibly made things worse”.
But that’s already the current situation.
There’s an implicit assumption that some miracle is going to occur in the future that’ll fix things, or that if you try hard enough, things are bound to work out for the best.
It’s almost like you’d told everyone you were going to become a millionaire playing slots at the casino. You’ve lost your initial stake, and more besides. Would it be foolish to go home? Not really. Sure, you’re convinced that the winning pull is coming up soon, but other people are looking at you, shaking their heads.
Well, I certainly hope, for the sake of the Iraqi people, that their chance for a better life and a better government (with our assistance) is greater than my chance of hitting the jackpot.
I hope so, too. But given the track record and the absence of any kind of coherent plan, the US admin looks like a bunch of underpants gnomes. You’ll be forever stuck in the “collect underpants” phase.
What about similarities then ? Are there none ? Xtisme focused on the differences…
One I think is valid is a civilian government with mostly political objectives in mind and the military without militarily accomplishable tasks taking the toll.
Second is a population with mixed feelings… Iraqis say they like america and then they hide or don’t rat on resistance fighters. This contradictory state of affairs seems to be happening. You don’t know which “gooks” are for or against you.
Third could be lack of civilian synch with reality on the ground. Nice words are used... reality is denied and over optimistic reports given credit.
Naturally troop morale and quality are different... thou Iraqi fighters are no pushover and have a strong sense of nationality. The media and the US populace are way more interested in this debacle than they ever were with vietnam.
Xtisme... as for casualty rates... vietnam era rates are totally unacceptable today... but that doesn't mean a man a day is acceptable. The army today is more trained and better equipped. The current rates are lower in part due to this. The one a day casualty doesnt look rosy because Vietnam had higher casualties... politically its relevant nowdays. Volunteers and reservists getting killed is worse in many ways than poor whitesh and blacks getting killed back then.
I Don’t think we have any idea exactly how many people are fighting back in Iraq. From what I have read most of the attacks are roadside bombs or missle/mortar attacks that can be carried out by very small groups of people. At a height of even 33 attacks per day the kind of attacks so far indicate small numbers of resistance fighters. If we start seeing headlines like “200 iraqi resistance fighters overun village of ?” then I think the comparison to Vietnam will be valid. The VC & NVA had a seemingly endless number of fighters they were willing to commit to the fight. The US lost 50k soldiers in Vietnam. The NVA lost over a million.
The problem is that Iraq doesn’t lend itself for the movement of big groups. 200 people together = big target. So people fight anyway they can… they aren’t stupid to present a viable target to US troops.
I agree & I think for the reason you stated it will make it harder for this to turn into a Vietnam type conflict. The resistance will continue to do some damage but if they cannot rachet things up more it will be more difficult. I do not think time is on their side.
