Just wondering what the general opinion was on the war in Iraq. I didn’t want to get into a long debate - just wanted a straw poll type thing.
To me, it looks like its going to get even messier before it gets better. I reserve judgement on wheter it was correct to overthrow the old dictatorship.
I do support our troops over there, because now they are out there they need all the support they can get (I’m a Brit by the way).
Regardless, I think more and more coalition troops will be sucked into an on going war in Iraq, with lots more dead on all sides.
In short, I think it could turn into the kind of nightmare that Vietnam was for the USA. Maybe it will end up costing Bush his presidency. What do you think?
I think in terms of scale - no way. Newsweek had this question on their cover the other day, and they pointed out that the number of people lost in Iraq so far (around 500) pales in comparison to the thousands and thousands lost in the decade in Vietnam. It was not uncommon to loose 500 soldiers a week in Vietnam.
The main similarity that I see is that we’re perceived as not belonging there, and Iraqis end up with a love-hate relationship with the US: love that Sadam is gone, hate being in what amounts to a police state with no guaranteed stability. We need to get Iraq better local representation, but then we’ll still need to stick around for awhile to maintain peace and order. Done correctly, we could be there a long time, but without anywhere near the casualties.
With respect to the U.S. misunderstanding the political situation in each country, then Vietnam and Iraq are similar. Fighting to support a government that is not popular with the people is simply a losing proposition. Democracy simply isn’t a solution for Iraq.
In terms of the cost (and I’m not talking about the lives destroyed, Vietnam wins that hands down) of failure, there is more at stake in Iraq. Oil, of course. Does anyone think that OPEC would want to see the U.S. in control of Iraqi oil?
Yes. In Vietnam is took several years between when the first American troops arrived and when the serious fighting started. Same with Iraq. Two things in particular are worrisome.
Six months ago, Paul Bremer assured us that there were fewer than 5000 enemy militants in Iraq. By all accounts, far more than that were fighting against us this month. That means that the authorities there are capable of getting good estimates of what sort of force they’re up against. For every guy who’s out there in the street shooting at us, how many are forging alliances, recruiting new members, building up weapons caches, raising money, plotting attacks, etc…
There’s this guy Sistani. He seems to have more supporters than Al-Sadr. He started out as a lukewarm supporter of the governing council, but in recent months his rhetoric has turned more and more against them as he realized that his supporters wouldn’t be allowed to dominate the government. If he orders his supporters to start a war, the chaos of the past month could look like small fries by comparison.
I’d like to posit that the potential and existing problems (of engagement, plan for reconstruction and withdrawal, etc.) hold more parallels with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan than to the U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
In regard to the difference in the number of casualties between the Vietnam War, and the current war in Iraq, Vietnam started slow as well.
In the first four years in vietnam, we lost 1,536 soldiers. (I assume this is mostly in '65, since we did not have many soldiers there before then, and well, we were at least pretending they were not fighting before that.) It took time for us to get to the point that we were losing thousands a year. We have lost 755 in the first year and 2 months. People are still getting polarized in this conflict, if things continue the way that they are, we could need a Vietnam sized deployment. If things escalate to the point where we need troop deployments at Vietnam levels I could see Iraq catching up to the losses we suffered in '66-67 I would not go as far as the losses in '68, I cannot see any of the groups we are against now pulling a Tet style suicide attack. It is not that I do not think that they are willing to do such things, I doubt that they have the numbers and oganization neccessary. Of course, that could change in two years.
So, yes, in the sense that it is a conflict that started kind of small, and seems to get bigger as we go along, it is another Vietnam. Comparing the two casualty levels seems a bit premature, though. I would hope that we can see the futility of our situation before we actually reach that deployment level, or that casualty level, since I cannot see an outcome different from Afghanistan. The people there fought on the same side until their enemy was gone, then they set out to kill each other for control after they were gone. But, then again, Bush does not think that he makes mistakes, so we will probably devote more and more to Iraq with with him in office. Keep counting, we have 10 more years left before the length of time justifies a comparison.
I was at work the day that the president addressed the nation, telling us we’d enter war with iraq. We all gathered 'round the television in my office and when it was said and done, we rose and kind of looked helplessly at each other.
I said to no one in particular: this is going to be another vietnam; a war created by US policy.
If we do not stay the course and leave; the terrorists will see it as the sign of weakness they predicted. They will then bring the battle to us. When we left Vietnam they did not come after us.