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Another point of view
Bill Sharp |
Similarities between
Vietnam, Iraq growingSen. John McCain is wrong. Vietnam and Iraq do share a striking set of similarities.
The initial logic for U.S. involvement in Vietnam and Iraq was based on bad analysis. U.S. officials thought they had to defeat communism in Vietnam or else a domino effect would ensue, resulting in other poor Third World countries turning to communism. The United States lost in Vietnam, but no dominos fell. Where are the weapons of mass destruction and the proof that Iraq maintained any operational relationship with al-Qaida? Dictators simply do not cozy up to uncontrollable, armed groups whose members are idealistically motivated and well financed.
America further justified its Vietnam involvement on the pretext of building democracy. But the United States scuttled the 1956 Vietnamese election that would have unified Vietnam. Elections held by the Republic of Vietnam were one-candidate farces, set up so the United States could show critics it was building democracy. Likewise, it is obvious that the U.S. will have its fingerprints all over any Iraqi election.
The Department of Defense's belief in its technical superiority, conventional tactics and earth-shaking firepower made entering both conflicts seem less risky. Exposed to massive B-52 strikes, Viet Cong guerrillas went underground in their Chu Chi subterranean city until the bombing stopped. Then they came out unscathed and resumed fighting. In Iraq, U.S. technical superiority has done little to stem the growing frequency of highly effective small group operations.
For example, the success of anti-U.S. forces in cutting off supply routes and the siege at Fallujah. Despite the millions of dollars that have been invested in high-tech weaponry, Iraqi insurgents, as the VC did before them, use the simple, inexpensive RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) with astonishing success. U.S. soldiers are still equipped with the M-16, which frequently jams, just as it did in Vietnam nearly 40 years ago.
The United States and South Vietnam had little chance to achieve victory once they lost the crucial support of the Buddhist establishment. The repeated self-immolation of Buddhist monks cost the U.S. and South Vietnamese governments the broad popular support they desperately had tried to cultivate. Having been a pillar of Saddam Hussein's support, it is no surprise that Iraq's Sunnis form a strong core of resistance against the United States. The United States hopes to cultivate the majority Shiites, yet its actions clearly demonstrate that it is trying to create an election system that will drastically limit Shiite political influence. No wonder we are witnessing a growing cooperation between the two Islamic sects.
To many, Vietnam was a civil war, and the biggest fear in Washington is that Iraq will become a civil war. Interestingly, both are bastardized countries, geographically configured by external powers. Iraq was cobbled together by the British in the early 1920s, combining the Kurds, Sunni and Shiites. It is all too obvious that the Kurds would like to have their own homeland, and the Shiites are rumored to want a political hookup with Iranian Shiites. It is no wonder that Iraq required a strongman to hold it together. France stitched together Tonkin, Annam and Cochin China to create Vietnam. Regional and ethnic animosities are still apparent in contemporary Vietnam.
We ought to know better about picking leaders who ultimately work against U.S. interests. Ngo Dinh Diem was a God-fearing Catholic who had lived in both France and the United States. He was America's boy until he began to alienate the Vietnamese through his heavy-handed policies. He was killed in a coup tacitly supported by the U.S. and carried out by the Vietnamese high command. Let us not so quickly forget that evil Saddam Hussein was once aligned with the U.S. and the beneficiary of U.S. military aid.
As for American leadership, the president in both tragedies is a rough-talking, cowboy-like Texan. Remember LBJ's motivational talk to the troops in Vietnam topped off by his war whoop "nail the coon skin to the wall" and W's comment about "swatting flies."
If both LBJ and W wanted to save another country, then Daniel Ellsberg and Dick Clarke wanted to save the U.S. from LBJ and W. Ellsberg ratted out the Department of Defense in The Pentagon Papers, explaining the behind-scenes machinations at the highest level of government. Clarke did the same to the White House in both his testimony before the 9/11 commission and in his book "Against All Enemies."
The public supports the war, but then again it also did at the start of America's longest war.
Bill Sharp is a former instructor in U.S.-Vietnamese relations and Asian history at Chaminade University. He served in Vietnam with the 525th Military Intelligence Group.