Those who do not learn from history...

I was reading earlier today and saw references to a report issued by the Marine detachment in Iraq, basically conceding that they have lost any semblance of control in the Anbar province. And that got me thinking about parallels between Iraq and America's other Great Military Fiasco--Vietnam. I know a lot of people said, going into the Iraq War, that it was going to be another Vietnam for us...I hoped we had learned the lessons. We haven't.

First off, I want to state for the record that I support the troops. I have friends and family who either have been or are now in the military, even have one very close friend who's currently serving in Iraq. In my eyes, they are doing the best they can given the circumstances under which they must operate. This is the first frightening parallel to Vietnam.

I've read a few books about the war in Southeast Asia...almost all of which stated, unequivocally, from both sides, that the U.S COULD HAVE WON the war in 'Nam, and was winning...until the politicians decided they knew how to fight the war better than the soldiers did.

Donald Rumsfeld, who's never been in direct command of military troops to the best of my knowledge, ignored the advice of several generals in regards to the number of troops sent to Iraq in the first place. Regardless of the moral underpinnings of the war (I'll hit those next), when people who do not know how to fight a war decide they know more than people who have spent their entire lifetimes studying the subject, you've got problems guaranteed to follow. Not only did we not have enough troops on the ground to maintain stability (a shaky proposition at best, anyway), we had no strategy for how to deal with the situation AFTER Iraq's defeat outside of the sunny proposition that we would be hailed as liberators of an oppressed society--which lasted for about two days.

Moving onward--the dubious moral prospects of both. Vietnam actually comes out stronger in this case--I mean, we DID go in there to support a government against overthrow. It was even a democracy already. Unfortunately, it was a blatantly corrupt democracy and we did nothing to leverage it into cleaning up its act. This cost us a lot of indigenous support, because people saw us as only coming to maintain their miserable status quo. That turned into the best recruiting tool the Viet Cong could ever ask for.

Amongst my readings earlier, I also came across an article out of the Christian Science Monitor (I know, what a hotbed of journalistic fervor, right?)--they interviewed three different specialists in Muslim society, asking them if the actions of the United States in the last five years had actually done anything to disrupt al Qaeda. One was Middle Eastern, one was American, and one was European (if I recall correctly)...and, surprisingly, they were in complete accord with each other--The United States was doing everything right...UNTIL they invaded Iraq. It is hard to imagine an action that would have played better into al Qaeda's hands, sort of actually nuking a target in the Muslim World. The repeated insistence that there WERE WMD's in Iraq (never proven), and that Saddam Hussein had ties with al Qaeda (still unproven, and according to most sources, even disproven), which grudgingly evolved to "We did the right thing because it just had to be done" has won us no friends in the world at large, and a lot of enemies in the Middle East.

(For the record, I do believe that we would have had to face down Saddam Hussein at SOME point. I also believe that it would have been far better to wait until the world demanded that we do it in some fit of moral outrage, because I have no doubt he would have given us the excuse. Apparently, the Powers-That-Be in Washington don't believe in the adage of 'give a man enough rope...')

The conduct of the war is yet another parallel. Vietnam had a slew of reported war atrocities (the most infamous being, perhaps, the single photograph of a RVN officer shooting a civilian in the head, execution-style)--and while they were not typical of how most people conducted the war there, they were widespread enough to cause outrage among allies and on the homefront. War is naturally an unpopular proposition--trying to conduct war without internal support is nigh impossible and a recipe for disaster.

Iraq has had Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, CIA black-bag operations illegally spiriting captives across borders, dubious methods with even more dubious results, and regularly contradictory messages from the military personnel in-country and their leadership at home.

Y'know, looking at the equation, I'm hard-pressed to say where we learned a damned thing from Vietnam...except maybe to put the blame where it belongs. Support the troops, yes...but to hell with their leaders.