President Bush has been comparing Iraq to Vietnam, noting the dangers of a Saigon-style evacuation. "One unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens, whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 'reeducation camps' and 'killing fields.'" Yes, an Iraq retreat could well lead to a bloodbath in Iraq and in the Middle East, but this is not the main reason to see this through.
Bush argued that the Communists in Indochina "were driven by a merciless vision for the proper ordering of humanity. They killed Americans because we stood in the way of their attempt to force this ideology on others." Bush is correct that the Islamic radicals and Iraqi insurgents too are fanatical ideologues, but again, this is not the primary reason for Americans to resist the temptation to hastily bring the troops home.
The main point Bush failed to stress is that while Vietnam was peripheral to America's vital interest, Iraq is central to it. For all the domino theorizing that went on, Vietnam was in a region of little strategic significance. Iraq by contrast is an oil-rich country in a region of critical importance. When Vietnam fell, it was bad for the people over there but had little impact on the welfare and security of Americans. If America loses Iraq, that risks a second state falling into the hands of the Islamic radicals, who have promised to target Egypt and Saudi Arabia next. Undoubtedly the jihadists would also feel emboldened to carry their murderous attacks to U.S. shores. In that event, 9/11 would be only the beginning.
In sum, America could afford to lose Vietnam. A loss in Iraq carries much higher costs to our economic welfare and our personal safety.
Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 3)
1. Yes, this is true. Although millions of South Vietnamese were either slaughtered or sent to forced labor camps for reeducation, they posed almost no threat to U.S. shores, nor did we think they would. Iraq is a bloody situation we must win- call it a war, a police action, or a bloody-situation, it must be resolved to the interests of the United States and the rest of the free world.
But let's talk about the president's message, for it has received great scrutiny today... It plainly was inspired by a desire to lift morale among the peoples of the nations fighting the Iraqi Insurgents (and perhaps lower it among the insurgents). No doubt the president's critics and enemies will continue to scoff at his statement, which did emphasize how our new surge is working and offering hope.
The thing 99.9% of us hate is the fact that much of our tax paying dollars are going into this war. But what about all this money?-Most of us daydream about how it could have better suited our domestic agenda- schools, police, natural preservation and the like. The Democratic controlled House and Senate are threatening, and are coming close to, cutting the funds of this war.- a smart political move.
But we've got to win this war if we expect to save our American way of life and as long as the job MUST be done the sooner we get it over with the better. And the way TO get it over with is to go the limit and not muddle around with half measures. Unlike the Vietnamese, the Islamic Radicals WILL attack us at home. Trust me.
Immediate all-out expenditure of vast sums for war purposes undoubtedly is the economical method of winning this conflict- like we did in many of our previous wars. Washington ought to cut many of our non-defense expenditures to the bone. The money can be used for better bulletproof vests, robots (hey, read about them! They're there!), and better guns, among other things. The further production of our war machine is the wise way to go about the business of handling the Islamic Radicals.
All-out with everything we have is the right course. If we adopt this policy and the world finally awakens to the fact that we mean business and mean it with a vengeance, this war isn't going to last as long as some of the pessimists fear. And whatever the price may be in dollars, we must remember that those who pay our currency will be purchasing victory at a much cheaper price than that which is being paid even at this moment by some of our brave men and women over in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Tsar Nicholas II at 12:46AM on Aug 23rd 2007
2. I could not disagree more with Tsar Nicholas. The facts are this is an insurgent resistance to an occuppying foreign military. The DOD, Pentagon,and intelligence agencies have stated in their mutual assessments that Iraq is exacerbating the terror problem by acting as a recruiting tool for extremeists. The Iraqi government is simply ripping off the U.S. taxpayers. So are Halliburton, KRB, and Blackwater. Nearly everything relating to the conditions on the ground in Iraq has been a lie. The reasons for war were lies, and the President as well as his administration have lied to all Americans. The fact is Iraq will not become a stable democracy. Political solutions are not in the making as Iraqi factions are truly not interested in cooperating with each other. The idea that Iraqi hordes will follow our troops home is ridiculous and every security assessment to date has dismissed this possibility as wholly unrealistic and unfounded.
If in fact the threat were real and the consequences truly as dire as some would argue; WHY IS THERE NO DRAFT? Troop levels are simply unsustainable with the current force size. The utter lack of cooperation among the Iraqi government coupled with the majority view that killing Americans is acceptable, simply Tsar Nicholas' statements. Please define winning. What constitutes a win in Iraq? We have a tank army with a superior airforce fighting an invisible enemy. It's time to redeploy and repair our military.
Soothesayer at 2:19AM on Aug 23rd 2007
3. AL QAEDA IS A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION NOT A RELIGIOUS ONE!!!
CHARLIE at 3:45AM on Aug 23rd 2007
4. Vietnam and Iraq are exactly similiar in that in both cases the United States invaded and nearly destroyed two nations that posed no threat to it whatsoever and which the US had absolutely no right or justification for invading.
Bush says that the Vietnamese Communists killed Americans because "we stood in the way of their attempt to force this ideology on others." No, the reason why Vietnamese killed Americans is because we were invading their country, which is the same reason Iraqis are killing Americans, which is the same reason that Americans would kill anybody invading our country. Why is that so difficult for conservative Republican morons to comprehend?
And, no, "millions" of Vietnamese were not killed or sent to reeducation camps after the Communist takeover. That did happen in Cambodia,but that was thanks to the fact that Nixon had Cambodian leader Prince Sihanouk overthrown and replaced by a US puppet by the name of Lon Nol, who in turn was overhthrown by the homicidal maniac Pol Pot (who in the 80s was supported by the Reagan administration). If Nixon had left Sihanouk alone, none of it would have happened.
emelpe at 4:39AM on Aug 23rd 2007
5. No, the South Vietnamese did not perish because the U.S. government "cut and ran." South Viet Nam suffered so much because the U.S. government presence there, for the past 11 years, had worked them into a siege mentality. If you have a castle, and you hold off overwhelming forces for 11 years, you can be sure they're going to go ape when they finally take over the castle. On the other hand, they never would have gone so insane had the South worked a transfer deal, or had the South Vietnamese fought on their own.
It's like someone who runs from a cop: the cop will go insane and beat him up. Not for any just reason: just because he ran.
Siege mentality, folks. Should South Viet Nam have capitulated? Well, we're doing business with them now. Someone in the U.S. government seems to think they're doing something right. Capitalism in Viet Nam, as in China, is picking up.
As for troop landing craft packed with pajama-clad, AK-47-wielding V.C. hitting American beaches? Never would have happened. Ditto with Iraq.
Geoff at 5:41AM on Aug 23rd 2007
6. The war in Iraq cannot be won. I spent four years in Army Intelligence (which is not an oxymoron). Although it was over 40 years ago much remains the same. I had read an intelligence report before we invaded Iraq that once we defeated the regular Iraqi army, which would just fade away, we had 10 weeks to accomplish our mission.
From the 1st to the 5th week we would be considered liberators. From the 6th to the 10th week we would be considered occupiers and after 10 weeks we would be considered invaders.
It is absolutely evident that this administration had no clue regarding the culture of the Iraqi people. They now consider us the Christian Infidel invaders and this is just a continuation of the Crusades of the Middle Ages. This is the prevailing opinion of virtually all Arabs. They have very long memories.
The other main misapprehension of this administration was the thought that they could transplant our style of democracy into a country that had never had any experience with self rule and had not had a democratic thought in 5000 years.
Every assumption made by this administration was incorrect, politically, militarily and economically.
alzoh at 7:16AM on Aug 23rd 2007
7. French-Indo China,AKA Vietnam is vital to secure a southern route of conquest to the western hemisphere. Nobody who mattered cared a whit about the people there, nor the people in Korea, nor the people in Cuba. The only goal was to block the communists from securing a viable platform for manned invasion of the west.
The US abandoned Vietnam as soon as we finished our satalitte ring and could remotely monitor and attack by air any troop mass in the equatorial zone.
The only reason we need to stay in Korea is because in far northern lattitudes the orbital monitoring has blind spots that could be taken advantage of.
Rhetoric about the "people" is for feel good types.
Iraq is not about oil, we have more oil under Arkansas than in all of the middle east. Iraq is simply logistics, it's a central point in the middle east that we can use to draw in terrorists from all over the region as they try to drive us out. As long as they're busy trying to fight us in Iraq they have much less resources to focus on terrorism on US soil.
The Muslims are not going to stop trying to kill Christians, Jews, and atheists. People are going to die. We can take the fight to them, or let them bring the fight to our shores. US policy is to take the fight to the enemy and spare our civilians.
There is no gooey sweet solution to this situation, no Hollywood ending. If we leave Iraq before we've crushed the Muslim belief that they can win against a weak and decandent west thay will just come back to the US and kill more civilains.
Soldiers will die, or civilians will die, but there's no way to stop the death except by killing them first. That is simply the facts.
Darkmanwp at 8:20AM on Aug 23rd 2007
8. Had we not invaded Iraq and subsequent terror attacks occured on US soil or our energy supplies were severely disrupted the majority of us in the current anti-war movement would be frothing at the mouth and screaming for blood. Then we would be blaming the first President Bush for not destroying Saddam Hussein during Desert Storm and the current President for not acting aggressively enough to defend our soveriegnty. I am against the war because it is easy. I can cause political damage to Republicans and can still drive my SUV to the supermarket and have them pack my groceries in bio-degradable bags. I want the United States out of Iraq immediately, provided that will not in any way endager me or my loved ones or reduce our personal carbon footprints. If withdrawl of our troops from Iraq can't provide that assurance than, STAY THE COURSE!!
John Gleason at 9:18AM on Aug 23rd 2007
9. Iraq is of vital and strategic importance to the oil industry, of course. I wouldn't dispute that. But does the United States have the right to annex territory because it contains oil or mineral deposits? Does the energy industry's profitability truly override ethical concerns?
One reason I and many people of fairly moderate or conservative dispositions dislike the right-wing agenda is that it has discarded morality in favour of a destructive worship of money and power. The invasion of Iraq was planned before 9/11, and right-wingers with their usual disregard of truthfulness and honesty like to pretend that it wasn't.
Living on the West Coast, I have a lot of Vietnamese friends (and ex's), and I have heard many stories about the years after the failed Vietnam War. It was a horrible tragedy, and I will always regard it as yet another reason to mistrust France. (Another is that France demands the right to test nuclear weapons and insists upon arming dangerous totalitarian Islamofascist governments in the Middle East.) But these Vietnam comparisons don't make a lot of sense ultimately. We were drawn into Vietnam because we were on an aggressive anti-Communist path. We entered Iraq because the oil industry barons who crept into power in 2000 in the United States want to do Saudi Arabia's bidding and destroy the secular and Shiite governments which the Saudi dictatorship hates.
America should not be in bed with the dictators of Saudi Arabia. It's a terrible mistake. The Iraq War has led to the death of over a hundred thousand Iraqis. The aftermath of the war will possibly lead to the slaughter of many times that number. It's unconscionable. It's sickening. And it's disturbing that right-wingers have dragged us into this apocalyptic struggle against our will, only to now say "we can't afford to lose this!"
We couldn't afford to begin it, you idiots. I know that a plank in the right-wing creed is that history can be rewritten and that reality can be redefined at a moment's notice to meet the bottom line. But the rest of us, the "reality" community, are growing tired of your smoke and mirrors.
Barton Fink at 7:10PM on Aug 23rd 2007
10. Viet Nam was a 30 yr war, conflict, invasion. The Iraqi invasion and the invasion of Viet Nam are comparable because we entered countries that were involved in CIVIL WARS.
In Viet Nam, North against South. We withdrew, we did not WIN that heinous attack we made upon the Vietnamese. We did not have any reason to become involved in what was THEIR BUSINESS. The entire Domino Theory, of course, was later disputed. As in Irag the WMD lie was denied later.
Conflicting reports of US, Cambodian, Vietnamese Civilians and Laotians.
Americans MURDERED-116,419
Americans wounded and maimed-153,303
MIA-1,948
Viet Civilians MURDERED-2,000,000 to 5,100,000
Cambodians MURDERED-7000,000
Laotians MURDERED-50,000
We do have to thank the Khmer Rouge for the Genocide of the 2,000,000 Cambodians. Such lovely people, such cowardice.
Any person who denies this invasion was over oil is as naive as the day is long.
Iraq
Americans MURDERED-3,800
cannot locate civilian casualties and US wounde stats.
Both counries were involved in CIVIL WARS, Shi'i, Sunni, Kurds and other factions have been murdering one another for well over 1200 years. It will not end, we blame Al Qaeda for the trouble and murder in Iraq, although they play a part in terrorist activity, It is Sunni, Shi'i and Kurdish that have been doing this from the get go.
We do not belong there, as we did not belong in Viet Nam. Civil wars are not our fight.
Domino, Schmomino theory in Viet Nam, Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, nuh, uh.
Both internal civil wars are not our fight, I reiterate. OIL< OIL< OIL>>>>>>>>>>>
We need to get out of Iraq before more of our men and women are MURDERED.
It was said that it took 10 american soldiers to deal with one insurgent. That word is awfully familiar, yeah? Chief of Staff, USAF, Curtis LeMay Said " We're going to bomb them back to the Stone Age ", I think not.
Hundreds of thousands of South nVietnamese officers and ARVN officers were imprisoned in reeducation camps after the Communist takeover. Yes, Cambodia, Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot was contracted by the Vietnamese against the Communist gov't. Khmer Rouge were responsible for murder and torture of Buddhist Monks, westerners of intellect and anyone, for exg. that wore glasses were deemed intellectuals, lame, and disabled persons were murdered as well.
Sihanouk and Pol were in China at the same time but were made unawares of the fact they were there at the same time.
Then we have the 2 million that escaped by boat, of which half perished at sea. Others were beaten to death with pipes and other instruments, so as not to waste bullets, ergo the 'Killing Fields'.
Insurgents, now Al Qada. Have we become so brainwashed as to believe that these wide spread, disorganized terrorist faction is waiting around biding their time just to attack us in an attempt greater than 9/11. Usama has not been heard from lately, most likely dead from renal failure."There is nothing to fear but fear itself". We cowtow to these uneducated, morons we believe will most assuredly be the death of America as we know it.
Love when during the near end of the Viet Nam war " The Domino theory is actually an illusion".
The comparisons between both wars, Iraq and Viet Nam, cannot be denied.
Civil wars, never will end when we act as insurgents. They will continue to kill each other until one rules out.
Pol Pot and his Third Reich ways, Iraq and their religious/civil war are not ours to enter into.
I know there is an assumption of Reagan supporting Pol Pot as there are the assumptions that the CIA supported Usama bin Ladin during the Russian-Afghani war. When it concerns the govt., one never knows what the heck the truth is.
My daughter got home from Manhattan 2 hrs. pre-attac, my sister worked at Merrill-Lynch at the WTC, and friends of mine were murdered there. I would never make light of such a devastating attack on our soil. Allowing 9/11 fright fests to interfere with logical and rational decisions regarding persons of Islamic faith by believing they are all out to get us at any moment is IRRATIONAL.
Wars are man-made, and as such can be stopped.
Damn right I'm pissed about the incredible sick amounts of mad money being spent hourly. People devastated by Katrina still have nowhere
to call home, children left parentless and nothimg is done about that. It sickens me.
rhodalee at 9:45AM on Aug 23rd 2007
11. Much like Vietnam, I find the arguments for staying in Iraq a sham and a complete distortion. And that is putting it mildly. In both instances, we created a civil war and supported an unpopular govert in which the only outcome would be the death of thousands innocence people and the eventual withdrawal of Amer. troops. Of course, the fact that we have already killed and maimed thousand of innocence people always seems to be ignored by these hawkish media clowns and the war supporters. And this idea that we cant allow Muslum radicals to take over their own country is as absurd as the domino theory was in Vietnam. If you well meaning folks would spend more time in the library instead of listening to these corporate morons on TV, you might not sound like a broke record. Learn to think for yourselves and dont let the govert think for you. Because from my experience in Vietnam, our corporate run govert is only interested in looting Iraq, while convincing you that it is all in the name of freedom and democracy. It's not that Americans cant handle the truth, its that the govert can't handle the indictments.
gshort3011 at 9:45AM on Aug 23rd 2007
12. the anti war defeatist virus appears to have true grasp upon the american mind set and cause us to lose faith in our abilits to carry out international policys replacing it with a more cut and run attitude once things start going bad for us.
while all the while blaming the presdent when it a joint venture with both the president and congress walking into iraqi hand in hand eyes wide open. in the end there will be enought blame to go around for both parties
jerry richardson at 9:52AM on Aug 23rd 2007
13. War is not policy, it's the failure of policy.
Someone thinks we're going to break the will of this culture? Guess what, Europe tried that, through everything they could at these infidels, and maybe that's one reason they're not there now. Too bad the CIA didn't do its job--that's the fault of both Dems and GOP presidents. We can do what other civilizations do: stay healthy first with intelligent defense at home, which obviously has been lacking.
What will happen now is that Bush will try to pull out in a fairly graceful way. Put a good spin on it. Because people aren't going to behave in the way you want them to just because you go in an shoot them. In fact, that will probably just make them behave worse. Maybe we should ask the Iraqi govt. when it gets back from its long vacation . . . maybe they can help pay funeral expenses for all the US soldiers who will die trying to keep order while they're gone. This lunacy has gone on long enough for me--sending young men to their death for nothing doesn't take much courage. Standing up and speaking the truth does.
michael white at 10:16AM on Aug 23rd 2007
14. I am amamzed at the average length of the above posts, representing opposing sides of the argument(s).
An anecdote: Recently, at a flea market in the West 70s, I found a bronze paquette awarded by Columbia University (W.115th St & Broadway) for "services" in WW2. It bore the engraved name of Laughlin Currie. He was an economist in the Roosevelt administration. A fictional TV show, "The West Wing", based an episode on an attempt to get a posthumous pardon of his spying (for Russia) conviction. But Mr. Currie's real infamy is his alleged culpability in "losing China".
Central to Bush and the neocons' ideological mindset is the notion that Vietman was "lost", by politicians at home, just as China was. To them, Iraq is headed the same way.
What is interesting -- to me, anyway -- is that Bush is in outstanding health and will be around for the next 30 years of this debate, as the symbol of it and a participant in it.
Cheney, blissfully, will speak now and then forever hold his piece.
--Paul Bosco
Manhattan
Paul Bosco at 10:28AM on Aug 23rd 2007
15. Whoops! Make that last word "peace".
Paul Bosco at 10:30AM on Aug 23rd 2007