Now, we've had this discussion back on v1 of the board. But I thought after watching a documentary on Vietnam and U.S. Military Intervention that it be brought up again...

The reason is the similarities I see between What Johnson did from the Gulf of Tolken and Cheney/Bush did with Iraq and WMD's. They both made the claim that countries would fall into the line of democracy like domino's once the USA prevailed victorious. Both wars were by choice, and were sold to the American people. They used the fear of communism like terrorism is used today. We know that certain Viet Cong generals went to Baghdad and trained many in guerilla warfare and tactics to be used in urban settings. "Let the cities be our jungles, and the desert our swamps." They knew they didn't stand a chance against our Army with our weapons and technology, so they knew they'd have to slip into the shadows and begin to wear our troops down, day by day, week by week. Similar to what is happening in Iraq. It bothers me that the lessons from then aren't applied today. How many deaths will it take in Iraq for us to pull out? How many deaths will it take before a draft is reinstated? How much more money can this country spend on another that doesn't stand a chance in hell of making reliable progress to a free functioning soverign country? We have undertaken something before finishing another, Afghanistan. We have aliented many in doing so. Parallels between Iraq and Vietnam are there, specifically at the policy making level. It's still the same ol' foreign policy we will liberate these people if they have a use to us, otherwise fuck'em. I refer you all to Carter/Regan/Bush of Zinn's People's History. But before we can get that far we have to give the American public a reason for this invasion, FEAR, let's scare'em into thinking Saddam was about to bomb a city with a nuke. Complete blatant lie, and they perpetrated it as the truth. Vietnam did not have the support of the American people, it was looked on as a failure, and costed us more then just human life and treasure. We need to look at these similarities that we currently face, and ask ourselves is attempting to right an impossible wrong worth it? With our own country in such dire need of this protection and treasure, why spend it in Iraq? We create and choose our enemies, as long as it furthers a long term goal, be it the military industrial complexes agenda or that of procurring natural resources and creating a stable Middle East. Since Japan and Germany we think we can fix anything. That's not the case. Look at all our folly's in foreign policy and the estimated 6 million dead from our War on the Third World to realize we aren't saviors and we do just about everything based on our own interests soley. We are not a beakon of freedom rather a controller of our freedom. For better or worse.

/rant

Similarities and Differences:
http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ssi/pdffiles/00367.pdf

Didn't read the PDF, but that was a pretty good rant you had there.

Neil Finn is wrong....history does repeat.


Is modern day Iraq akin to Vietnam?...in some respects.

Only time will tell, however, if the similarities are truely there. Lets hope against hope that you're wrong and things get better...

that post is so silly and wrong I'm not even going to resond!!

Thought I'd get a flurry of folks saying how much Iraq isn't like Vietnam. I guessed wrong...

I wonder if it is more like Vietnam ... or Afghanistan.

Iraq today reminds me of Afghanistan a year and a half ago. So many people said it was a mess that could never be fixed. And of course, there is still trouble there, but there is also undeniable progress.

Also, I wonder what Vietnam might have been like had we somehow been able to finish the job ... I just wonder is all, without debating wrong or right.

Or had not gotten involved to begin with....

Im growing tired of punching holes in baseless analogies. The two conflicts are similar only because one party was involved in both, and they were wars, end of similarities. Everyone against U.S. military involvement will draw these correlations because they have negative opinions on the issue and the its easier to simply equate this war with a recent debacle than actually facing the truth. This is the same method Bush uses to equate Kim Jong and Saddam to Hitler and Mussolini, and its gay.

I don't think so: http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ssi/pdffiles/00367.pdf

Many differences, many similarities....

The thing I think frustrates people about Iraq is that we won't know for years if this thing is gonna work.

I mean, Vietnam didn't become "Vietnam" for several years.

I think it will be years before anybody can label it a success or a failure, and by then so much more will have been invested in the effort.

Americans, by nature, aren't patient people. We even want our pizzas in 30 minutes or less.

If Iraq follow the same arc as Afghanistan, I think it will mark major progress.