Will we learn from history or repeat it?
How Iraq is--and is not--like Vietnam.
By AcademicElephant Posted in War — Comments (20) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
There's been buzz over the weekend about President Bush's "admission" to ABC's George Stephanopolous that Iraq is like Vietnam. After all, everyone from Chuck Hagel (R-NB) to the geniuses who write for The Nation have known this truth for years, but Mr. Bush as been obstinate up till now and denied reality. His trumpeted "admission of guilt" has flashed around the media. His Press Secretary was grilled on this vital issue as the White House press corps tried to get Tony Snow to say it again. C'mon, they begged, pretty please? Confirm what we've all known for so long. Look, even the President is admitting it now, and can we be more than a few days away from a penitent and tearful Dick Cheney opening his heart to Barbara Walters in a very special prime time interview, and publicly asking for forgiveness from Speaker-Elect Pelosi?
Read on...
Of course, as we learned from the full interview yesterday, the President said no such thing. He did not say, nor has he given any remote indication that he believes, that Iraq is like Vietnam. What he said was that Iraq could be like Vietnam--specifically that the upsurge in violence this fall could be an imitation of the Tet Offensive in 1968. Mr. Bush did not propose the analogy; he was being asked about the Thomas Friedman column in the New York Times (TimesSelect), which streiff quoted on Friday. But the President, who is perhaps not so ignorant of history as many would like to believe, understands the connection and his analysis is spot on.
As I understand it, the Tet Offensive was a throw of the dice--a suicide mission, if you will that was designed to win the Vietnam War through non-military means. To tip the balance of teetering American support for the war with increased casualties and the impression of overwhelming North Vietnamese strength conveyed home by a dutiful press in graphic and horrific images.
And it worked.
Current consensus is that the Tet Offensive was, ironically, a military defeat for the North Vietnamese. There were increased American casualties during the attacks, but they pale in comparison with those suffered by the North Vietnamese, who put everything into Tet and had little to back it up, had the Americans retaliated forcefully. But the Americans did not. A demoralized public demanded an end to the war, and so started the pursuit not of victory but of "peace with honor" that sadly concluded in 1974.
Fighting wars in hindsight is a comfortable armchair pursuit and one I generally try to avoid, but I think it's worth contemplating what might have happened had the US maintained its resolve in the face of the North Vietnamese offensive in 1968, regardless of who won that election cycle. How might the face of southeast Asia be different today, had Vietnam been established as a nascent democracy in 1974? Of course, spreading democracy wasn't the priority then that it has become now--it was considered too time-consuming and too difficult. Installing friendly strong men was a much more expedient method to ensure American influence in any given second or third world region. It's easy to criticize this policy from our current perspective, but we should remember that we were fighting the larger Cold War at the time and resources were limited. Can you blame successive administrations from trying to establish allies as quickly as possible, and not trouble themselves with the mess of democracy? I might posit that a benign military dictator would be much more convenient in Baghdad right now than an elected leader who has to respond to pressures from all elements in his constituency, whether we like them or not. But again in hindsight, would we be better off if we had established a democracy in Saigon, which might now be emerging as something along the lines of a mini-South Korea? It would have taken a long time--we might just be seeing the fruits of this work now--and we probably would have sustained low-level casualties for years. It would have been expensive and yes, I'm sure even Ronald Reagan might not have managed a seamless transition to democracy. He might have--gasp--made the occasional mistake. We would not control the country, and such a Vietnam might even vote against us at times in the UN. But I think it might well have been worth it in the long run. How would the global picture, starting with Sino-American relations, be different today had such a free and democratic Vietnam been developing in the region?
It's certainly a tantalizing prospect, but we'll never know because, as I noted above, the bold and savage PR campaign that was the Tet Offensive worked. A demoralized America chose not to pursue the Vietnam mission. Almost forty years later, another president draws our attention to a situation that may well have significant parallels with Tet. He spoke Saturday morning about the enemy's program of media manipulation and savage violence, and it's hard not to think of Tet in this context. But what does not have to be parallel is our response. We do not have to settle for "peace with honor." We can, as the Iraqi government is asking us to do, hold the course with them to achieve victory, defined as a free, self-sustaining and peaceful Iraq. The President met over the weekend today with what could be termed his diplomatic and military "war cabinet" to discuss how to confront the new challenges in Iraq. Certainly, if the situation merits it, tactics can and should be changed. That's why such meetings are regularly scheduled. They're a proactive, rather than reactive, response. Such maneuvering is not an admission of failure. It's called fighting a war--a war that may have some historical precedents, but which is unique. In Iraq we can learn from the history of Vietnam, but we need not be so very eager to repeat it.
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Both those wars had China and the Soviet Union providing significant support to the enemy. Both had legitimate communist governments who were the agressors against their non-communist neighbors.
Iraq is more like post WW2 Germany with a few extra twists. In Germany, there was a de-Nazification. In Iraq there was a de-Bathistation.
In Germany, there were terrorist "werewolves". In Iraq, there are terrorist Al-Queda.
In Germany there was a massive reconstruction program, sometimes fraught with corruption. In Iraq there is a massive reconstruction program, often fraught with corruption.
etc.
Iraq has some additional religious and ethnic problems that Germany didn't have. Those are going to cause problems for many years, but splitting the country may not be the best solution. It may only cause additional problems (look at Pakistan and India).
But the Iraqi terrorists did learn some lessons from Tet. They learned that sometimes you can convince your enemy that victory isn't worth the cost. The lesson I learned is to not declare defeat and go home when you can win by staying the course.
I think this "Iraq is like Vietnam" dreck is just that, dreck. No war is ever like any other war; they are all unique in every measurable way. Quite aside from the historical irony of Tet as an American-media-created failure, there is only one aspect of Iraq that was/is anything substantively like Vietnam or any other war before or since; brave men have died in the service of their country.
"Iraq as Vietnam" is a just more media-created dreck.
John
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Democratic civilization is the first in history to blame itself because another power is trying to destroy it.
... Jean-François Revel
He is actually making your point: In Tet we allowed the enemy to determine our future course due to MSM misinterpretation of the event.
didn't misinterpret the event; they were then, as they are now, willing, eager agents of the enemy. They were anti-American then and they have only gotten worse.
John
---------
Democratic civilization is the first in history to blame itself because another power is trying to destroy it.
... Jean-François Revel
and to be clear, it was a massive tactical defeat for the NVA.
Giap and Ho Chi Minh,[ the George Washington of his country as he was described by our media], gambled that their army was ready to confront the US on conventional military terms.
As I posted earlier, the NVA was slaughtered. They gained nothing, they held onto nothing. It took close to two years for that army to rebuild. The measure of the slaughter may be grasped by the fact that Giap had directed the sige of Dienbienphu, where the dead were piled on the French barbed wire, but to no effect on Giap. You might say Tet got Giap's attention. The Last Valley is an excellent history of the French Indo China war and Dienbienphu in particular.
It took an inventive media to turn America's greatest victory into a defeat, proving imagination is a wondrous tool when you yearn to see the country of your birth lose, the American dead to have died in vain, the South Vietnamese people to die by the tens of thousands, and a neolithic and a barbarous government given the opportunity to ply their barbarity.
Things and the media haven't changed, the death wish is still preeminent, the sadistic urge to encourage and spread suffering is still in place and practice, the glee at defeat and disgrace still anticipated, and the perverse and uneducated still bathe, wear suits, and think themselves both civilized and knowing.
But one thing hasn't changed, we could pull out of Vietnam, we can't pull out of America. This war doesn't know borders !
"a man's admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him". Tocqueville
Yes, the American military triumphed in the Tet. Then some hot shot new caster by the name of Dan Rather began his lie filled conversation with Walter Cronkite that lead Walter and America to loose confidence in what our President and congress was doing with the blood of America's young men. (That would be the democrats and President LBJ, by the way)
But the NVA were not defeated. It was the VietCong, successor to the VietMinh who defeated the French. There is a difference between the VC and NVA. It is not unlike the difference between Iraqi Bathist rebels, and Iranian irregular forces who engage Americans in Iraq. The NVA is the North Vietnamese Army. While they did lots to support this particular offensive, it was the VietCong, the VC that did the fighting. The VC were so completely decimated by American troops in the Tet Offensive, they ceased to exist as a force in Vietnam. The VietCong never again took to the battle field in any force.
America was not defeated by the NVA either, America quit. Shortly after we agreed to time table for a withdraw and reduced American troop levels the North Vietnamese invaded the south, in violations of their agreement. Not long after that the Vietnamese went on a murderous rampage throughout the region.
It may be, as President Bush said, that the increase in attacks in the Iraqi war, is like the Tet offensive of the Vietnam conflict. It certainly seems that they enemy wants the American citizens to force the government to quit the battle.
It is said that insanity can be defined as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Again, the media wants us to set a date for withdrawl, and the media is willing to lie to convey messages that will undermine our determination to win.
Thinking we can set a date to leave Iraq like we did in Vietnam but expecting different results, is well, just insane.
Support the Mission - Honor the troops
Exsolvo Orbis Terrarum
and realizing I'm off thread but the NVA or PAVN was the main fighting force at both Khe Sanh and overall the Tet offensive. VC units were utilized during the campaign but far and away the larger units were regular NV forces.
Pause and consider the possibility of irregular forces, guerillas, holding the US Marines in sige at Khe Sanh, not likely. More available, but off thread & I'll pass.
"a man's admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him". Tocqueville
that Iraq and Vietnam are both geopolitical features of our planet?"
Headline: "Bush Says Iraq is Like Vietnam.
Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.
"Fighting wars in hindsight is a comfortable armchair pursuit and one I generally try to avoid, but I think it's worth contemplating what might have happened had the US maintained its resolve in the face of the North Vietnamese offensive in 1968, regardless of who won that election cycle. How might the face of southeast Asia be different today, had Vietnam been established as a nascent democracy in 1974?"
It's a pretty big leap from "US maintains its resolve" to "Vietnam becomes nascent democracy." Even if we'd been aggressive after Tet, it's a LONG way from a foregone conclusion; one assumes the NVA and VC would just have reverted to their old tactics, against which we were not losing but not really winning either.
I'll believe the Tet Offensive analogy when someone convinces me we've killed 25,000+ insurgents over the last few months. Otherwise, I agree with jsteele...
I don't disagree that it's a leap, and as I said in the post the priority of spreading democracy was not a priority for that conflict, but the point is that we don't know how it would have worked out, do we? And that had it been attempted and achieved, where might we be? We might consider that as we gauge where we want to be 30 years from now vis a vis Iraq--where we are with Vietnam now?
"I'm kind of old-fashioned. I like to engage my brain before my mouth." Donald Rumsfeld
And where would we have been if we hadn't gotten involved in
Viet Nam in the first place? We'll never know, except at the end of the day, it's hard to say that we were better off for our involvement there.
I think that there is some similarity between Iraq and Viet Nam, although not what has been discussed here. In both cases, a growing majority of Americans lost faith in the Administrations' explanation of our purpose for fighting. Americans haven't lost the resolve to win a war, but I think we want to know that the lives and money are being spent in a worthwhile effort.
And where would we have been if we hadn't gotten involved in
Viet Nam in the first place? We'll never know, except at the end of the day, it's hard to say that we were better off for our involvement there.
I think that there is some similarity between Iraq and Viet Nam, although not what has been discussed here. In both cases, a growing majority of Americans lost faith in the Administrations' explanation of our purpose for fighting. Americans haven't lost the resolve to win a war, but I think we want to know that the lives (and money) are being spent in a worthwhile effort.
Both the North Vietnamese and AlQueda use the same playbook - the Soviet inspired manual on Wars of National Liberation ase the base for their military/political strategy and tactics. That is why the massive effort being made just before the American elections.
It should be noticed that both AlQueda and the various insurgencies are playing to the MSM and the growing "Cut and Run" crowd. After the elections, the level of violence will subside as a maximun effort cannot be sustained.
Furthermore, our best bet is our current strategy under the circumstances. There are no significant military targets for our Great Land Air (Sea) Battle troops. Those on the Right who are in favor of increased military action are the modern day equivalent of the "On to Richmond" crowd of the Civil War era.
Those on the Left are the modern reincarnation of the great Civil War general, Jubalation C. Cornpone of Dogpatch.
Southeast Asia be different? I don't know, but there would have been several million more Southeast Asian faces now.
Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.
"In War: Resolution:
In Defeat: Defiance
In Victory: Magnanimity
In Peace: Good Will"
Winston Churchill, "Mr Never Give Up" himself. Without his spirit and will, we would all be speaking and writing to each other in German or Japanese.
The Left foolishly thinks today that it's right to engage in its immoral and repugnant activities supersedes our right to ensure that our heads are not separated from our shoulders by some crazed Islamofascist.
In terms of the psephological rather than the military similarities and differences this:
1. Both were popuar at the beginning and have become less so.
2. Vietnam was fought during the draft; many conscripts fought there; even larger numbers of young men feared that they might have to. All of the young men in both categories had families and friends.
Even if the Iraq war ended up being even less popular than Vietnam - ie more people were saying it was a mistake - it doesn't mean it would move more votes. People can believe that it was a mistake and still vote Republican if they support the Party's other policies. The taxes you pay every day might seem much more significant than a single foreign policy issue. But if you think your son is in danger of dying over that single foreign policy issue, then it is a very different call.
Quentin Langley
Editor of http://www.quentinlangley.net
Of course we can. Will we? That is the question. But first, lets review the facts, because, while I think your heart is in the right place, you have a few of the pieces out of place.
The Tet offensive was a large scale coordinated military assault by the VietCong, not the NVA. The VietCong were the South Vietnamese insurgents who were known as the VietMinh in the war with the French. The NVA is the North Vietnamese regular army. They wore uniforms. The VietCong wore "black pajamas". The North Vietnamese lived in miltary compounds, the VietCong lived among the population of South Vietnam.
We defeated the VietCong, we did not defeat the North Vietnamese Army. In fact, we never took the battle to them. And that is the first lesson to learn from the Vietnamese conflict. We could beat the insurgency, and still see Iraq conquered by the Iran. To win, we must defeat everyone who joins the battle. That means, to win, sooner or later we must either confront defeat or discourage Iran, Syria and maybe even Saudi Arabia.
The second lesson is that leaving doesn't work. The peace treaty that lead to the draw down of American troops failed. Vietnamization failed. The North Vietnamese (not the VietCong) invaded and captured Saigon, overthrowing the South Vietnamese government. North Korea hasn't been able to do that to the South. South Korea is a dynamic prosperous country while the north is starving. East Germany and Russia couldn't capture West Germany. West Germany was a dynamic and prosperous country, compared to the soviet dominated East, leading to it's colapse and reunification. In each case, success is the result of our continued presence of our troops, many decades after the end of major military action.
The third lesson we learned is that the media has an agenda, and that they are uniquely capable of manipulating the images and messages to support that agenda. Personally I prefer to call it lying, of the type Dan Rather was guilty of then and now.
When President Bush acknowledged the possibility of the Tet offensive comparison, he admitted to the presence of the elephant in the living room. Like the fable of the emperors cloths, the naked truth can't be recognized until someone mentions it.
The truth:
We didn't loose the conflict in Vietnam, we quit. Quiting failed.
The media promised things would be better if we quit. They lied.
The academics said that the domino theory was the invention of War Hawks in the democratic party, who had lots of reasons to prolong the war. The graves of tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of South Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians can attest to that lie.
Now that President Bush has broken the ice, we can talk about Vietnam and Iraq in the same paragraph. Lets start with this message:
Insanity is defined likened doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results each time. Quiting Iraq, like we quit Vietnam, and expecting it to lead to anything other than a regional blood bath on a scale many times greater than the Post South Vietnam period blood bath is, well, insane.
Support the Mission - Honor the troops
Exsolvo Orbis Terrarum
http://devine-gamecock.townhall.com and www.race42008.com
"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so." - Ronald Reagan
of all of this, from Tet to Iraq 2006 is that the administration needs to push back and push back hard. The troops are the best ever fielded in the history of the world; I'm not worried abou them, they are prefessionals and they can deal with anything that comes their way.
But the media has learned they can demoralize the citizenry, and they can do it by merely repeating the same lies over and over. It is incumbent on the administration to take off the gloves. Stop playing nice with carefully crafted, carefully nuanced public statements; it is well past time to call a lie by its name and do it regularly and forcefully, the very fate of the nation depends on it.
As the Democrats like to say, 'do it for the children.'
John
---------
Democratic civilization is the first in history to blame itself because another power is trying to destroy it.
... Jean-François Revel
You said:
"There were increased American casualties during the attacks, but they pale in comparison with those suffered by the North Vietnamese, who put everything into Tet and had little to back it up, had the Americans retaliated forcefully. But the Americans did not."
This is Iraq in a nutshell. This war has become like Korea more than Vietnam. We are sitting on the defensive waiting for the war to end. What is and has been missing in this war is offensive military action by the US and Britain. Real offensive actions have been few and far between. This is no way to win a war sitting by while our soldiers are blown up by roadside bombs.
Fight to win it or split the country up to save at least part of it. The status quo is not working.