Iraq: Vietnam replayed

9/22/2005 1:00:00 AM GMT

As the Iraqi resistance gets bolder, more sophisticated and more deadly, political parallels pile up between the Iraq and Vietnam wars.

And while the hawks are failing all over themselves to reject the comparison of Iraq to the debacle in Vietnam, analysts suggest that Iraq’s surprisingly resilient resistance, and the scandal of abusing prisoners at the hands of U.S. military personnel all recall the trauma of the distant jungle conflict.

Recent polls have showed increasing number of Americans now feels that Iraq war is similar to Vietnam, but still, nearly half of the American public resist equating the illegal occupation with Vietnam.

Appalling photographs released by several media outlets worldwide in the wake if the abuse scandal, showing hooded and naked Iraqi prisoners abused by U.S. guards, have sparked a wave of disgust not seen since the Indochina campaign.

"We risk losing public support for this conflict," influential Republican Senator John McCain, himself a prisoner in Vietnam, was quoted once as saying.

"As Americans turned away from the Vietnam War, they may turn away from this one, unless this issue is quickly resolved with full disclosure immediately," McCain said.

Indeed Bush’s admin should be alarmed that the American public is increasingly drawing comparisons between the two wrenching wars.

Both wars sprang from dubious provocations: in Vietnam it was the disputed North Vietnamese attacks in the Gulf of Tonkin; in Iraq it was the never-found weapons of mass destruction that Bush claimed Saddam was in possession of.

If the 1968 massacre of hundreds of Vietnamese in the village of My Lai exposed the ugly face of the U.S. militarism; Iraq’s Abu Ghraib scandal has indeed surpassed all expectations.

Shortly after Iraq war began, Secretary of State Colin Powell, once the nation's top general, voluntarily compared Abu Ghraib to My Lai. However, several analysts stated that the prison debacle has proven to be worse in many aspects.

Also today, numerous Army officers have started to go public with doubts whether the United States is winning the battles against the Iraqi resistance as some high-ranking officials claim everyday, or losing the overall war just like in Vietnam.

“Little dissimilarity”

But little dissimilarity can be found between the two wars. For instance Vietnam’s guerrilla war was larger and supported by outside powers, while the Iraqi resistance is on a smaller scale, at least for the time being.

War veterans say that in order to win any war, regardless of its scale, you first need to know whom you are fighting.

The U.S. Army’s intelligence in Iraq is deficient, but in Vietnam, it at least knew its enemy. Unlike Vietnam, the U.S. forces in Iraq seem to have multiple enemies using a variety of tactics and taking advantage of urban terrain.

Also unlike Iraq war, the American public didn’t question or actually didn’t give much attention to its leader’s justification in the run up to Vietnam War. The press didn’t focus on the questionable justification for taking the country to war. Today, and as a result of increasing casualties on both sides, the press has had a field day with the “no WMD” issue, which made Americans examine the true reasons behind Iraq war more attentively.

Although military circumstances in Iraq differ from Vietnam, according political analysts, the political problem of being half-in and half-out remains the same.

Bush is indeed stuck in Iraq. And as the war costs appear to be growing, Iraq begins to look more like Vietnam every day.

Sources: The Independent, Commondreams.org

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