Vietnam/Iraq comparison

[robin]

Nixon & Vietnam
Kill two million in the process of trying to win them over to the great freedoms on offer in the west & the idea of a western lifestyle, by carpet bombing them, napalming them & dropping dioxin on them.. then withdraw.

Bush & Iraq
Kill ten times more Iraqis as the number of people killed in 911, even though Iraqis had nothing to do with 911. Then withdraw, probably after as many Americans again will have died as in 911, whilst pretending that democracy is functioning & having appeased the defense contractors that sponsor him.

http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/Top102005Report.html
http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/papirel.html

Amazing to think isn't it that in the end... as many Americans are going to be killed at the behest of Bush as at the Behest of Bin laden !

 

[a_marine4bush]

you know iraq was the United States next threat....therefore we took the inniciative to ask them to remove there WOMD's........we found there was evidence of these weapons being there.....we havent found any no, but we have rebuilt iraqs government......people are voting........and you say we are killing iraqis......but hussein was killing more than we ever will and we have also ridded of him......u cant express the differences of a war unless u have actually been in one of them because ur facts are based off media and not fact.....


Semper Fi.......United States Marine

 

[M14 Shooter]

Nixon & Vietnam
Kill two million in the process of trying to win them over to the great freedoms on offer in the west & the idea of a western lifestyle, by carpet bombing them, napalming them & dropping dioxin on them.. then withdraw.

Bush & Iraq
Kill ten times more Iraqis as the number of people killed in 911, even though Iraqis had nothing to do with 911. Then withdraw, probably after as many Americans again will have died as in 911, whilst pretending that democracy is functioning & having appeased the defense contractors that sponsor him.

So... where's the comparison?

 

[Conflict]

The comparison to vietnam is obvious. Our people dying by attempting to fight a convential war where there is no such conventional concept as traditional warfare by a culture that the Bush administration hasn't even attempted to understand. We are fighting an ideology... remember? There is no physical answer to the idea of those who already hated US enogh and now even hate us more. Instead of diplomacy we get stubborness and ignorance from the Bush administration. No CiC could be so stupid as to take the actions that Bush has...

 

[ngdawg]

I'm gonna make an assumption that you are relatively young and give a quick history lesson.
Troops were sent to Vietnam under the Eisenhower administration, in 1955
but not for fighting a war, but rather for help in creating a 'non-communist' government after France granted independence to it, Cambodia and Laos.
Then Kennedy came along. He increased the presence of US troops to quell the ever-growing presence of the communist North Vietnam in 1961. He sent military 'advisers' , military technical and economic aid. On November 1, 1963, the leader of South Vietnam and his brother were captured and killed.
President Johnson , after two attacks on Us ships, called for more troops to be sent.
Nixon, while not the best leader, hired some very intelligent foreign policy experts, including Henry Kissinger. Nixon inherited the mess of Vietnam and, with his nation divided on the 'war', Kissinger's advice, knew it was an unwinnable situation, so they put together their plans to pull out.

 

[RealityCheck]

A war that can not and will not be won, resulting in the slaughter of countless humans both military and civilian, based on lies. Just like the Gulf of Tonkin, where the US sent thousands of our boys to death in the jungles of Vietnam based on the now confirmed (by declassified documents) lies and manipulation of the "intelligence" communications which was edited and twisted to make it appear that there was an attack at the Gulf of Tonkin, when in fact there was not, the Bush Regime lied, twisted, and manufactured the evidence of the fabled weapons of mass destruction and the laughable "Al Queada" Saddam link. Now the leaked "Downing Street memos" have revealed the deception on the Iraq war, yet most of the public slept through it. Not much has changed here...just the same old same old.

 

[robin]

The comparison to vietnam is obvious. Our people dying by attempting to fight a convential war where there is no such conventional concept as traditional warfare by a culture that the Bush administration hasn't even attempted to understand. We are fighting an ideology... remember? There is no physical answer to the idea of those who already hated US enogh and now even hate us more. Instead of diplomacy we get stubborness and ignorance from the Bush administration. No CiC could be so stupid as to take the actions that Bush has...

Thanks conflict. Mr Clearly Mr 'M14 small 5enis' doen't know the difference between comparison, analogy & similarity.

Main Entry: com·par·i·son
Pronunciation: k&m-'par-&-s&n
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French comparaison, from Latin comparation-, comparatio, from comparare
1 : the act or process of comparing : as a : the representing of one thing or person as similar to or like another b : an examination of two or more items to establish similarities and dissimilarities

 

[Mikkel]

you know iraq was the United States next threat....therefore we took the inniciative to ask them to remove there WOMD's........we found there was evidence of these weapons being there.....we havent found any no, but we have rebuilt iraqs government......people are voting........and you say we are killing iraqis......but hussein was killing more than we ever will and we have also ridded of him......u cant express the differences of a war unless u have actually been in one of them because ur facts are based off media and not fact.....


Semper Fi.......United States Marine

Actually, many of the facts that robin put forward are available through the DoD website and other government agencies, not just the media. Also, and this is a large matter of debate, I don't think Iraq was considered the next big threat to the united states before Bush started talking about it all of the time. Repitition isn't truth. If anything, I'd say that either Iran or N. Korea were much bigger threats than Iraq at the time.

 

[a_marine4bush]

Actually, many of the facts that robin put forward are available through the DoD website and other government agencies, not just the media. Also, and this is a large matter of debate, I don't think Iraq was considered the next big threat to the united states before Bush started talking about it all of the time. Repitition isn't truth. If anything, I'd say that either Iran or N. Korea were much bigger threats than Iraq at the time.

well unless ur in the military then can you honestly say that u really know....have u sat down and someone told you the complete plan of the war hmmmm......didnt think so!

 

[Mikkel]

well unless ur in the military then can you honestly say that u really know....have u sat down and someone told you the complete plan of the war hmmmm......didnt think so!

I don't need someone from the military to sit down with me to give me a reason to go to war. Unless you know something immensely important that isn't being shared with the public, aside from field operations, I think my opinion is as valid as anyone's when it comes to who's a threat to the United States or not.

Secondly, to reiterate, none of Robin's comments had to do with anything involving 'the complete plan of the war.' The only facts Robin used were publicly available data released by the government. So unless the government is lying to us (which wouldn't surprise me, actually) Robin's argument is just as, if not more, valid than yours.

 

[M14 Shooter]

The comparison to vietnam is obvious. Our people dying by attempting to fight a convential war where there is no such conventional concept as traditional warfare

This is patently false. We are NOT approaching this as a 'conventional' war - we have been fighting it as counter-insurgency, in exactly the manner a counter-insirgency should be fought.

And, much to the chagrin of the "I hate Bush" crowd, we're having remarkable success,

 

[M14 Shooter]

Thanks conflict. Mr Clearly Mr 'M14 small 5enis' doen't know the difference between comparison, analogy & similarity.

Just like a woman - can't defend what she says, so she has to throw out an insult.

 

[Iriemon]

Both Iraq and Vietnam involved actions where substantial portions of the US population came to question the legitimacy of the intervention. Both involved actions against a local foe with whom a substantial portion of the indigenous population sympathesized, making it very difficult to determine friend versus foe. Both involved situations were the credibility of the Govt was called into account because of statements that were misleading or inaccurate.

 

[oldreliable67]

Ah, yes, here we go again with 'Iraq as Vietnam'. Lets look at the larger picture...

By the early '70s, with antiwar protests mounting in the streets and antiwar sentiment seething in Washington, we accelerated our military withdrawals, Congress cut off military aid to a South Vietnamese government we had committed to support, and the US was left to negotiate a fig-leaf surrender. We than stood by and watched the 1975 collapse of South Vietnam under a massive North Vietnamese assault. One need not argue that Vietnam was ever a fully winnable war to suggest that political rather than military realities led most directly to that grim outcome. And, as today's senators complain about casualties, begin to seek certain dates for troop withdrawals, and argue that the price of persistence is too high, the similarities to Vietnam are all too recognizable.

Another, more important, similarity. The war in Vietnam was not simply about Vietnam but also about the future of Asia, just as the war in Iraq is not simply about that country's future. It is also about the future of the larger Middle East. The war in Iraq is about the kind of change that we have seen glimmers of in Lebanon and Libya and even Palestine, the kind of change we hope to see more of in Eqypt and Saudi Arabia and eventually in Syria and Iran. Whatever the hopes for transformative events across the region, they clearly depend on the US as the agent for change. At the very least, we need to buy time. Alternatively, to lose heart and retreat -- after only two years and with a bit over 2,000 casualties -- almost surely means losing not just the battle but also the war, a far worse outcome than those who cite Vietnam similarities can seem to comprehend.

Note: bits and pieces of the above paraphrased from "A Bad Analogy", by Peter Kann, WSJ, 9/8/2005, who covered the Vietnam War as a reporter.