Another Vietnam

In My Opinion – by Bob Fogarty

We made a great mistake in the beginning of our struggle, and I fear, in spite of all we can do, it will prove to be a fatal mistake. We appointed all our worst generals to command our armies, and all our best generals to edit the newspapers.

Robert E. Lee

For people of a certain age or political views, the Vietnam War is something like Elvis, it’s everywhere. One of the many consequences of the American political defeat in Vietnam has been the uncontrolled proliferation of “Vietnams” in the political mind ever since. Nicaragua threatened to become another Vietnam, Lebanon nearly became another Vietnam. Had Grenada been only slightly larger than a manhole cover and lasted a bit longer, it would have been another Vietnam I suppose. The invasion of Panama was rapidly degenerating into another Vietnam, right up until we won. Likewise, the First Gulf War was certainly becoming another Vietnam, but then sadly, it ended quickly, with victory and few casualties. No country today is more prepared to fight a long unconventional war against a few grubby little terrorists in a far away sandbox than America, who learned how to lose in Vietnam. Thus, it is with considerable joy that those who are ready to teach us the lesson of Vietnam find that they finally have another war that has lasted longer than John Kerry’s campaign. “Obviously” they say, “the best course of action is to withdraw from Iraq immediately, and allow the country to become an oil-producing Al-Qaeda super-state”. Oh yes, and begin the political posturing to win the 2008 election on an “I KNEW IT WAS VIETNAM RIGHT AWAY!” platform. And that would probably be the smart thing, because the lesson apparently learned by the Looney Left is, “It’s best to lose quickly, so as to avoid a quagmire”. For example, it’s said that during a long wait at a Chinese Buffet in Georgetown in 1987, Ted Kennedy reportedly yelled “QUAGMIRE!” and thinking quickly, attempted to surrender to a Spanish-speaking busboy. Unfortunately, other than peacenik rallies and the American media preparing to report an Iraqi “Tet offensive,” the similarities to Vietnam are pretty sparse. It could be reasonably argued that the real lesson of Vietnam is that it seriously damages a country’s reputation, and character, to lose at all.

The differences in the two conflicts are obvious, but that’s no reason to interrupt a good “IT’S ANOTHER VIETNAM!” flashback from the political left. Unless of course you want America to win in Iraq, rather than lose “another Vietnam” all over again. For the minority of the population that do think we should win, I’ll mention a few minor differences between Iraq and Vietnam, ranging from the material to philosophical.

First off, the Iraqi insurgency has no universal philosophy to attract Iraq’s population. The Viet Cong were communists I believe, and Communism was a worldwide political movement with a following on every Continent. The Iraqi insurgency however is primarily a religious affair among the Arabs. Shiites and Sunnis are not converting one another, and haven’t for the last few hundred years. In Iraq, the Sunni are fighting to continue dominating the local Kurds and Shiites, leaving this a cause that the Shiites and Kurds are highly unlikely to join, as it’s difficult to recruit from a Shiite and Kurdish majority while preaching Sunni religious supremacy. Even with no other difference, this alone would completely eliminate any comparison of the two situations.

The Iraqi insurgency has no country in which to organize the population. North Vietnam had a border that we could not cross for assorted political reasons. Inside that border the Communists could train, rest, and work at an assortment of warlike pursuits. They controlled the media broadcasts, recruiting centers, schools, the police, the courts, the roads, and ports full of supply ships. Every week they sent more troops down the Ho Chi Minh trail to invade South Vietnam. And every week we sat outside the border and played left tackle against those troops and supplies. The Sunni insurgents have no such refuge, as we’re already in their towns, fields, roads, and skies. They have no country anymore; we already took it away from them. They have holes in the ground to hide in, and a few basement bomb factories. The North Vietnamese fielded a modern military with tanks, artillery, and jet aircraft. The Sunni insurgents carry rifles, while strapping bombs to donkey carts and worn out taxicabs. They cannot openly recruit or train, because “their” country is full of assorted Shiites, Kurds and other Sunni Arabs that arrest them, shoot at them, and bomb them, quite regularly. The insurgency has no Soviet or Chinese material support either. A few truckloads of ordinance from Syria and Iran can in no way compare to the massive material support that the Vietnamese Communists received from the USSR and Red China.

Additionally, there were no free elections in Hanoi during the war. The effect of the Iraqi elections changed the nature of the war completely. Now, the issue is no longer Sunni rebels fighting an infidel occupier. It’s now an Iraqi majority vs. an Iraqi minority, with the US Army assisting the majority to get their feet on the ground. The Communists had never ruled South Vietnam either. By contrast, the Sunni Baathists have ruled Iraq. The Iraqi people know who they are, and how they will really rule. Saddam Hussein had been recruiting allies for us for the last twenty years, with his mass graves, prisons and rape rooms. No one really believes the Sunni are fighting for a worker’s paradise. Besides, who is Iraq’s Ho Chi Minh? This war is strictly a local religious and tribal affair remember. The closest thing to a grand leader is Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, and he’s on Democracy’s side. Nor was Ho Chi Minh at any point during the Vietnam War, sitting in a cell awaiting trial and execution by his vengeful former victims.

But despite all that, “Iraq is just Vietnam all over again”, according to the media, and brought to us in glorious living color on the six-o’clock news. The only similarities I see to the Vietnam War are in the minds of our liberal media, a few left wing politicians, and a wobbly population.

Now, consider one more reason why the two wars are not alike. A loss in Vietnam was not going to bring hordes of freshly inspired Viet Cong into New York or San Francisco with truck-bombs or an Iranian supplied suitcase nuke to finish us off. A loss in Iraq, regardless of why the war was begun, or how badly we want to go home, will greatly strengthen our enemies, as only a victory on the world stage can do. You’ll just love what a surrender, as espoused by Kennedy, Reid, Pelosi, and their followers, will do for us.

If we surrender in Iraq, it just might be a good idea to refurbish Grandpa’s old cold war bomb shelter…