Posted on 04/11/2004 3:32:54 PM PDT by quidnunc
The anti-coalition insurgencies by parts of the Sunni and Shia communities in Iraq have led to a renewed outbreak of the V-word in the Western media. V for Vietnam, that is. Even Australia's federal Opposition Leader, Mark Latham, has indulged the media penchant for making comparisons between the ongoing conflict in Iraq and the long-concluded Vietnam War. With one exception, these comparisons do not stand up to serious analysis. They signify either wishful thinking by an obsessively anti-American faction of politicians, journalists and academics, or an abysmal ignorance of history.
The first point of difference lies in the modest operational capability of the Iraqi insurgents compared with those in Vietnam. In Vietnam, Vietcong insurgents seeking the overthrow of the pro-Western South Vietnamese government had the armed and financial backing of a neighbouring state, North Vietnam. North Vietnam, in turn, was backed by a superpower, the Soviet Union. This meant that military and other material could be supplied to the insurgents in a continual chain that could be disrupted but not broken. The US and its South Vietnamese allies did not control South Vietnam's borders with North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
In contrast, no superpower, no state and no Ho Chi Minh trail support the Iraq insurgency. Neither the insurgents, nor any external state sponsor, control Iraq's borders or can penetrate those borders at will. Certainly, remnants of the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein have no shortage of weapons and ammunition. Small numbers of foreign fighters have also been able to penetrate the coalition's security screen along Iraq's borders. But this cannot begin to compare in scale and consistency with the continual flow of external support to the Vietcong.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at smh.com.au ...
It comes with a price, a cost that is high! Right now many Iraqi's no doubt still live in fear b/c of spies. But reports come outta there about how when the islamic terrorists start getting their arses kicked, that the local citizenry begins to provide intel, serious intel on the specific whereabouts of the losers.
So it's pretty clear that they want it. Freedom that is. They simply need some training on it and some comfort that the situation is really in hand. I'm sure that they are quaking at the thought of a Kerry presidency at least is not even moreso than we as honest, hard-working, and good and moral people in this country are!
Click here for the truth about what Viet Name did to Nixon at the polls
The Democrats apparently are under the illusion that the Vietnam War was devastating to Republican candidates. That was not the case.
When the left could not defeat Nixon at the polls on Vietnam, they used the break in of the DNC by Nixon operatives to take Nixon down.
Into which of these two categories does Ted Kennedy fit?
Yes, but they love to throw it in everybody's face. And the media just laps it up like a dog with its own vomit.
Why don't you try examining the transformation of Japan from a religious dictatorship into a Democracy before you start posting that this is up to the Iraqis. It is not up the the Iraqis. It is,as it was in Japan, up to us.
At the end of World War II the vast majority of Japanese did not know what democracy, freedom, or self government even were. ... let alone have a desire for it. They did not know what self government was. They did know how to kill rape and maim millions. They had just spent 15 years doing it. Japan was a religious society that embraced its own racial superiority and the reward of heaven for suicide bombers. Ever hear of Kamikazis? There are a huge number of similarities between militant Japan and militant Iraqis. To expect any Muslim nation in the middle east to understand self goverment is just stupid. It would have been like expecting the Japanese to undestand self government at the end of WWII.
Yet General Douglas MacArthur as military ruler, turned Japan into a Democracy and solid stable nation in just a couple of years. We stayed for 7 but Japan was a stable nation in less than 2 years. We stayed for 7 years because many Americans were certain that the nation building of Japan was sure to fail. It was, in fact, a huge success.
Americans of European descent are not the only peoples fit for self government. All it takes to turn the Japanese or Iraqis into free peoples is education and the establishment of the rule of law. That will make them solid citizens of the family of nations.
People who post their veiled beliefs in the racial superiority of those of European decent try to veil their racism in statements like the "Iraqi's may not be ready for freedom." That makes about as much sense as saying that black American slaves in 1860 were not ready for freedom.
Freedom is not an inbred trait. It is learned. It is not genetic... it is taught... no matter how much the racists wish it were not.
For America it was a political loss. But by 1971 it was actually a military victory, and had we continued with the aid promised (and reneged) by Congress, it might have been a military victory for the Vietnamese as well.
The NVA was stoked by Russia from 1973 to 1975 and still couldn't win. It was after we pulled the plug that things went downhill.
So it was a political loss inspired by Ted Kennedy, Jane Fonda, and John Kerry.
And they're going for the very same thing in Iraq right this very moment.
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The article is gone from the SMH site. Unfortunately, it will go unread. And uncompensated, irrespective of the copyright status you so zealously guard.
Yes, it's a problem sometimes.
The article in question is still available, albeit at a nominal cost.
From http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/11/1081621836013.html:
The gullible and confused should take note: Iraq is not Vietnam
April 12, 2004
The anti-coalition insurgencies by parts of the Sunni and Shia communities in Iraq have led to a renewed outbreak of the V-word in the Western media. V for Vietnam, that is. Even Australia's federal Opposition Leader, Mark Latham, has indulged the media penchant for making comparisons between the ongoing conflict in Iraq and the long-concluded Vietnam War. With one exception, these comparisons do not stand up to serious analysis. They signify either wishful thinking by an obsessively anti-American faction of politicians, journalists and academics, or an abysmal ignorance of history.
The first point of difference lies in the modest operational capability of the Iraqi insurgents compared with those in Vietnam. In Vietnam, Vietcong insurgents seeking the overthrow of the pro-Western South Vietnamese government had the armed and financial backing of a neighbouring state, North Vietnam. North Vietnam, in turn, was backed by a superpower, the Soviet Union. This meant that military and other material could be supplied to the insurgents in a continual chain that could be disrupted but not broken. The US and its South Vietnamese allies did not control South Vietnam's borders with North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
In contrast, no superpower, no state and no Ho Chi Minh trail support the Iraq insurgency. Neither the insurgents, nor any external state sponsor, control Iraq's borders or can penetrate those borders at will. Certainly, remnants of the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein have no shortage of weapons and ammunition. Small numbers of foreign fighters have also been able to penetrate the coalition's security screen along Iraq's borders. But this cannot begin to compare in scale and consistency with the continual flow of external support to the Vietcong.
There are also critical political differences between the conflicts in Vietnam and Iraq. The Iraqi people are an agglomeration of many ethnic and religious groups. There have never been comparable religious or ethnic divisions in Vietnam. The importance of this distinction lies in the differing attitudes of the various Iraqi communities towards the presence of Western-led forces in their country. The Kurds strongly support that presence. The Sunni minority, who were the big losers when Saddam was toppled, are the most active and bitter opponents. The Shiites, the largest group, are split. Only a small, radical fraction of its community supports the insurgents.
In contrast, US forces in Vietnam were confronted with a population, in the north and the south, among whom there was widespread sympathy for the insurgents. Most Vietnamese belonged to the peasant class who stood to gain from many of the land reform and other policies of the anti-US forces.
In only one significant area are the two conflicts similar: the way they have been reported by the media. In early 1968, the Vietcong launched the Tet offensive and succeeded for a short time in occupying the US embassy in Saigon. They also captured the old imperial capital of Hue and held it for some weeks. The intensive TV coverage of these events led many in the West to believe that the insurgents were winning military control of South Vietnam. In fact, the opposite was true.
Militarily, the Tet offensive was a disaster for the Vietcong insurgents. The Americans had previously been unable to flush them out of the towns and villages where they had blended in with the civilian population. In the Tet offensive, the Vietcong decided to come out into the open and, as a result, took a hammering. This point was largely overlooked by the media at the time.
The insurgents in Iraq have similarly emerged into the open and, as a consequence, have sustained painful military losses. But they have created a degree of instability and speculation about a potential civil war. These factors have become the natural focus of the media and therefore seem more threatening than they really are. Like the Vietcong before them, the Iraqi insurgents are hoping to convert their military losses into a political victory, courtesy of reporting and commentary that is at times emotive, confused and gullible.
Dr Leanne Piggott is a lecturer in Middle East politics at the University of Sydney.
This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/11/1081621836013.html
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