"Did I forget to post the full article again? D'OH!!"
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 ...
But OTOH the population of Iraq is about 24 million.
Whereas Iraq was doing both those things.
abysmally ignorant, obsessively anti-American faction of politicians. I am not allowed to write the words that express the way I really think.
Regrettably, this constitutes a significant portion of the American electorate.
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