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To: quidnunc
Q, with all due respect, herein lies the problem with unnecessary excerpts:

Page not found

We could not find the page you requested. This is often because older content has been removed from our site. In most cases you can still find the item via our archive service, News Store, where you can buy articles for a small fee.

The article is gone from the SMH site. Unfortunately, it will go unread. And uncompensated, irrespective of the copyright status you so zealously guard.

16 posted on 04/11/2004 5:59:04 PM PDT by okie01 (www.ArmorforCongress.com...because Congress isn't for the morally halt and the mentally lame.)
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To: okie01
okie01 wrote: Q, with all due respect, herein lies the problem with unnecessary excerpts:Page not foundWe could not find the page you requested. This is often because older content has been removed from our site. In most cases you can still find the item via our archive service, News Store, where you can buy articles for a small fee. 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.

18 posted on 04/11/2004 6:11:56 PM PDT by quidnunc (Omnis Gaul delenda est)
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To: okie01; lainde; quidnunc
All is not yet lost. :o)

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


20 posted on 04/11/2004 8:07:13 PM PDT by RonDog
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