Another Vietnam?

Wall Street Journal ^ | August 24, 2007 | MAX BOOT

[gpapa]

President Bush's analogy to Iraq is not inaccurate, just incomplete.

Ever since the mid-1970s, critics of American military involvement have warned that any decision to deploy armed forces abroad--in Lebanon and El Salvador in the 1980s, in Kuwait, Somalia, and Kosovo in the 1990s, and more recently in Iraq and Afghanistan--would result in "another Vietnam." Conversely, supporters of those interventions have adamantly resisted any Vietnam comparisons.

[snip]

[Darkwolf377]

Terrific analysis. A good remedy to that absolutely loopy article in Newsweek online.

[neverdem]

"Terrific analysis."

It was no less viable than South Korea, another artificial state kept in existence by force of arms over many decades. But after the signing of the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, we all but cut off South Vietnam, even while its enemies across the borders continued to be resupplied by their patrons in Moscow and Beijing.

--snip--

The danger of allowing enemy sanctuaries across the border. This a parallel that Mr. Bush might not be so eager to cite, because in many ways he is repeating the mistakes of Lyndon Johnson, who allowed communist forces to use safe rear areas in Cambodia, Laos, and North Vietnam to stage attacks into South Vietnam. No matter how much success American and South Vietnamese forces had, there were always fresh troops and supplies being smuggled over the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

At least one goof on Max's part, that he should know from the description of Vietnam's flanks. Being on a peninsula, it was much easier to defend South Korea. Bush's errors were in not physically punishing Syria and Iran for subverting Iraq and failing to secure borders, again, among other things.

[syriacus]

The tunnel-visioned Democrats are stuck on stupid.

Democrats want to abort a free, but troublesome, Iraq
just as they abandoned a free, but troublesome Vietnam and a free, but troublesome Republic of (South) Korea

Because of their kneejerk inability to see the "big picture," they will create more problems than they solve.

They want to repeat the mistakes of the Truman administration-- abandon our allies, give away our hard-won military advantages, cut our military budget and reduce our troop strength.

History has taught us that REWINNING freedom for a country can be a far more deadly undertaking than winning its freedom the first time had been.

If we abandon Iraq, we will, most likely, have to go back to REWIN its freedom because of humanitarian reasons and because we DO have interests in that part of the world.

Contrary to Murtha's shallow thinking refreeing a country is not an easy thing.

An overview of the beginnings of the Korean War
Korea's war for RE-INDEPENDENCE

Even casual students of history know that, in 1945, we freed South Korea (the Republic of Korea) from the Japanese. Those same students know that four years later, in 1949, the Truman administration abandoned the politically and socially unstable (and militarily weak) South Korea. At home, Truman had drastically cut the military budget.* The US military was left with outdated equipment and was severely undermanned.

As predicted by many people, South Korea was invaded (in June 1950). Here's a map showing that all but a small area of South Korea was occupied by the North Koreans in the first 3 months of the Korean War..

In July 1950, Truman sent troops BACK to S. Korea. I repeat again --- Rewinning freedom for South Korea was not an easy task. The closest troops were in nearby Japan but were at low levels of combat readiness. Also, the weather impeded and diverted some planned landings in Korea. South Korea's best air base (Suwon) was close to its border with North Korea and was busy handling US evacuations until it was overrun by the North Koreans. In the beginning of the war, US aircraft had to keep returning to Japan to refuel and replenish munitions.

Because we had pulled our troops out of Korea in 1949,
almost 8,000 Americans died in Korea in the first 3 months
of the effort to REWIN South Korea's freedom [aka, the "Korean War"]

30,000 Americans died in the first 30 months of that war which would not have occurred if we had not abandoned S. Korea in 1949.

By the time of the Korean Armistice in July, 1953, tens of thousands of Koreans had been killed and millions were displaced.

By the time of the Korean armistice, the severest censorship in memory had been imposed on news out of Korea. The military draft was in full swing.

* With the expectation that the US monopoly on atomic weapons would guarantee peace, President Harry Truman had insisted on reducing the annual defense budget to a less-than-bare-bones level of about $13 billion, hardly sufficient for any serious operations. (http://www.afa.org/magazine/june2000/0600korea.asp)