Bush Draws Iraq/Vietnam Comparison
I'm curious what anyone else thought about this article about Bush's comments comparing the Iraq and Vietnam wars:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061117/..._pr_wh/bush_60
I noticed a few Vietnam vets on this site and I was interested in what any of you might think.
Look at Lebanon, not Vietnam
I am not a Vietnam vet so I won't go there.
I am a Lebanon vet, however, and that is the real comparison we need to be making because that is where the parallels in ethnic and religious schisms are closest. 1975 to 2006 Lebanon offers a pretty good model for how Iraq may look like 5, 10, or more years from now. The big differences are of course, the Lebanese do not have the oil reserves and the Christians have traditionally been the dominant group. The simularities howver are striking: in both the Shia have emerged as a force to be reckoned with. Nasrallah and Hisballah are models for Muqtada al Sar and his militia, both have larger neighbors more than willing to meddle/intervene in their own interests, and Iraq like Lebanon has the challenge of competing ethnic/sectarian groups pursuing their own agendas. Sadly, I would say the Lebanese were in 1975 and now are in 2006 light years ahead of the Iraqis in mastering this art.
Best
Tom
I think you're right on that score, Tom. Hadn't even considered the Lebanese situation in relation to the Iraqis...I wonder if it will turn out the same way for the Iraqis. But as for our involvement, it just seems to me (a non-Vietnam vet as well) that the parallels between our actions now in Iraq and our actions under LBJ in Vietnam are frighteningly close. And it also seems to me that this is lost on our administration. I think a comparison of Vietnam and Iraq is very valid, but I think Bush missed the key points that the comparison should focus on. I wrote a blog on it today as well because Bush's comments really bothered me.
"On his drive into Hanoi, Bush passed many sites of note here, including the tomb of Ho Chi Minh and Truc Bach Lake, where Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was shot down in 1967 when he was a Navy pilot. McCain was held as a prisoner of war for more than five years.
"Laura and I were talking about -- we were talking about how amazing it is we're here in Vietnam," Bush said. "And one of the most poignant moments of the drive in was passing the lake where John McCain got pulled out of the lake. And he's a friend of ours; he suffered a lot as a result of his imprisonment, and yet, we passed the place where he was, literally, saved, in one way, by the people pulling him out."
In fact, according to McCain, who broke both arms and his right knee while ejecting from his A-4 Skyhawk, he was hauled out of the lake on two bamboo poles and beaten on the shore by an angry mob. In his autobiography, "Faith of My Fathers," McCain wrote that the crowd, shouting wildly, stripped his clothes off, "spitting on me, kicking and striking me repeatedly." He said someone smashed a rifle butt into his shoulder, breaking it, and another person stabbed him in the ankle and groin with a bayonet. A woman, possibly a nurse, intervened, and a Vietnamese Army truck arrived "to take me away from this group of aggrieved citizens who seemed intent on killing me," McCain wrote. He described subsequently suffering repeated beatings and torture at the hands of his captors in the notorious Hoa Lo prison, known to American POWs as the "Hanoi Hilton."
This came from the Washington Post's story about the Bush trip today. John Kerry's pre-election remark wasn't anywhere near as offensive as this.
Last edited by Jedburgh; 11-17-2006 at 08:29 PM. Reason: I understand your feelings, but its best not to put it that way.
...just venting a bit
Last edited by Jedburgh; 11-17-2006 at 09:00 PM.
I would say that the response of the military as an institution (at least in the early to mid stages - they have to their credit started taking corrective action in many areas much sooner than they did during Vietnam) has more in common with Vietnam (situational denial, misreading of the situation on the ground, and so on), but NOT so much the military or political situation itself. For that, Tom is quite correct in bringing Lebanon into the comparison discussion. That is a better political and social parallel.Originally Posted by UCrawford
But isn't it also relevant to bring up the parallels between Rumsfeld and McNamara's management style? Both were dismissive of military guidance that contradicted their own pre-conceptions. Both were enthusiastic micromanagers. Both appointed military leadership that seemed to be more oriented to agreement with the boss than problem-solving. I think you're right about the military on the ground adapting quicker in Iraq (as the 101st under Petraeus, among others, apparently grasped the concepts of counterinsurgency fairly quickly), but actions by Pentagon-level and above and the lack of a cohesive strategy for victory seem (at least to me) to have rendered many of our combatant commanders' efforts largely ineffective, irrelevant, and/or short-lived. That's where I was trying to draw the parallel with Vietnam...the poor civilian leadership at the top of the chain and a muddy strategy that gives the military forces an almost impossible task to fulfill ("If the strategy is wrong, it doesn't matter how good your tactics are" to paraphrase a quote in the Woodward book). As for the dynamics on the ground, I agree with you that Lebanon is a better parallel than Vietnam.
Last edited by UCrawford; 11-17-2006 at 10:13 PM.
That's why I said the institutional situation is similar, but not the overall situation. People who try to compare Iraq to Vietnam almost always want to claim that everything is the same. When drawing the Vietnam comparison, it's important to be very specific. The DoD reaction in general has been remarkably similar, and I believe that it would have been even with a different SecDef. Remember, Kennedy was an enthusiastic proponent of COIN-style activities and the military more or less blew him off.
It's that similarity of reaction that has really solidified my support for a major overhaul of the military personnel system and not just unit organization.
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