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BBHQ Boomer Essays: |
| Our Boomer-In-Charge here at BBHQ, Hershel Chicowitz, writes frequently about current events... from a boomer perspective. He is sometimes funny, sometimes provocative, sometimes a little of each. We hope you get a kick out of our Boomer Essays. |
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This is a continuation of a discourse on the Vietnam War, which began
here. In the summer of 2003, fear mongers began talking of the supposed "quagmire" in Iraq. Many pundits expressed concern that by liberating Iraq, we have gotten ourselves into another Vietnam. Well, I have just one word for that notion: nonsense! There are so many differences between Vietnam and Iraq that only someone who is not thinking clearly or who did not live through the 60s and 70s could sincerely make such a claim. Here are a few of the major differences:
In the fall of 2003, John McCain, a Vietnam veteran and U.S. senator, wrote, "Iraq is not Vietnam. There is no popular, anti-colonial insurgency in Iraq. Our opponents, who number only in the thousands in a country of 23 million, are despised by the vast majority of Iraqis. The Iraqi insurgents do not enjoy the kind of sanctuary North Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos provided. They do not have a superpower patron. These murderers cannot carry the banner of Iraqi nationalism, as Ho Chi Minh did in Vietnam for decades." The mess in Iraq appears to be drawing terrorists to Iraq. Nothing like that happened in during the Vietnam War. But that is not a characteristic of the war in Iraq. That is a characteristic of terrorism. The Democrats and other Bush-haters are doing all they can to make Iraq another Vietnam. On August 21, 2005 Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska joined the invokers: "We are locked into a bogged-down problem, not . . . dissimilar to where we were in Vietnam." Well, no. Americans had no reason to feel that their own security was at risk in Vietnam, whereas the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 made it clear that the enemy we face today poses a lethal threat here at home as well. In October 2005, Opinionjounal.com reported that, like the Democrats, the terrorists are trying to turn the mess in Iraq into another Vietnam:
Food for thought, huh?
 According to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall web page (www.thewall-usa.com), 47,386 American servicemen died as a result of hostile action in Vietnam. At the current rate, the death toll from Iraq's guerrilla war will reach Vietnam's level sometime in the year 2200. Our problem in Iraq was that we won the major battle too quickly - the enemy ran away before we could conquer all of it. What we see in the spring of 2005 are remnants of the enemy -- those that we missed in the quick takeover, and terrorists imported into Iraq. This is no Vietnam!
2007 Update: The further down the road we go, the more the media and the liberals want to make Iraq look like another Vietnam. Will they succeed? Yes, if they get their way. In 2005, OpinionJournal.com reported that "there is no serious antiwar movement today." That is not true in 2007. The Vietnam war was lost not because of military failures, but because the media turned against the war, and the people followed. Sound familiar? In 1973, they cried for "withdrawl." In 2007, they cry for "redeployment." The difference in 2007 is that they are cowards -- they are hiding behind soft rhetoric, afraid to state their real intentions, and indifferent to what would happen if the U.S. did withdraw our troops.
The press insists on reporting only the victories of the insurgents. They refuse to report what most soldiers say when they return stateside: that the violence is limited mostly to the area in and around Baghdad; that there are great successes in most of the rest of the country; that the citizens of Iraq do NOT want coalition forces to withdraw now. That certainly was not true in the Vietnam war. One cannot ignore some military similarities. It is true that no country openly supported Saddam Hussein. But in 2007, it is clear that Iran is providing munitions -- not to Saddam Hussein of course, but to the insurgents. Same difference. In 2007, the enemy is no longer Saddam Hussein; it is a band of terrorists. And yes, they are determined; they are not not forced to fight by a brutal dictator. And, like Ho Chi Minh, the terrorists are extremely patient; their plan is not for two or twenty years. Their plan is for victory in fifty or a hundred years.
Certainly every U.S. death in Iraq is a tragedy. But the magnitude of the deaths in Vietnam was overwhelming compared to Iraq. We do far more to protect our troops now than we did 35 years ago. And in spite of the shortcomings in our system of institutionalized, socialized medicine, we save a much greater percentage of our wounded soldiers, and we rehabilitate them far better than we did then.
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If you like what we're doing here at BBHQ, please help us by buying stuff through our link to Amazon.com:
| The BBHQ Feature Album is "Old Friends Live on Stage (Deluxe Edition) (2 CD/1 DVD)," by Simon & Garfunkel. If you were fortunate enough to see them in concert in 2003, I do not have to sell you. The concert was terrific! This album collection includes 55 songs, plus their new recording, "Citizen of the Planet," and one of the songs sung by the Everly Brothers during the concert. The DVD was recorded during their concert in Madison Square Garden in 2003. For any S&G fan, this is a must have! But then, you knew that already, didn't you? |
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The BBHQ Feature Book is
"The 5000 Year Leap," by
W. Cleon Skousen. The title does not
adequately identify the content, though the concept of the 5,000 year
leap is astounding. The subtitle, Principles of Freedom 101, is
much more applicable to the subject. This book carefully and clearly
summarizes the thinking of the brilliant founding fathers of our country,
the ideas behind the "miracle that changed the world."
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