Another Vietnam?

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jane_ca

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Posted: Apr 21, 2004 - 10:22 PM
Post subject: Another Vietnam?

Washington — "We must not waver," U.S. President George W. Bush said last week of the Iraq conflict, echoing a sentiment offered 37 years ago by another president about a different conflict.

"We will not grow weary," former president Lyndon Johnson said of the Vietnam War.

Times, Mr. Bush acknowledges, have been tough lately for American and other coalition forces in Iraq. Perhaps inevitably, comparisons have been drawn to Vietnam.

Both Mr. Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell have been asked recently whether they see the possibility of a Vietnam-style "quagmire" in Iraq.

Says Mr. Powell, "We must not suddenly lose the energy needed for this task by dragging out old labels, such as, 'This is Vietnam."'

Mr. Bush is vowing to stay the course in Iraq, brushing aside growing skepticism about the wisdom of his policies. Mr. Johnson showed the same mettle as he tried to defend, at huge cost, a beleaguered South Vietnamese government amid widespread restiveness among Americans.

Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy, a Democrat, is calling the Iraq dilemma "Bush's Vietnam." There are no assurances that the United States will be able to leave Iraq with all goals accomplished. Mr. Bush can only hope that it doesn't become the debacle for the United States that Vietnam was.

Polls show that about 40 per cent of Americans fear Iraq will become another Vietnam.

The President says the violence in Iraq is the work of a small minority that is thwarting the majority will. Mr. Johnson invoked that argument repeatedly during the Vietnam War. As was the case in Vietnam, U.S. forces are trying in Iraq to walk the thin line between winning hearts and minds and convincing the armed opposition that resistance is futile.

Scale is a major difference between the two conflicts. At the height of the Vietnam war, there were five times as many U.S. troops in Vietnam as there are in Iraq. Death rates among U.S. forces in Iraq, even with recent increases, remain far below those in Vietnam in the late 1960s.

For every U.S. soldier lost in Iraq so far, more than 80 died in Vietnam. Casualties from the 1968 communist Tet Offensive in Vietnam dwarfed the recent bloodletting in Fallujah. Also, Vietnam was mostly a clash of political ideologies. In Iraq, there are elements of a clash of civilizations.

And, unlike today's volunteer armed forces, many Americans who fought in Vietnam were draftees.

The United States tried for 12 years in Vietnam but never achieved its major objective. In contrast, Saddam Hussein was ousted a mere 21 days after fighting began in Iraq.

The U.S. problem in Iraq is the postwar. Six months after major combat supposedly ended, Congress appropriated $69.6-billion (U.S.) for military operations and reconstruction aid for Iraq; post-conflict Vietnam didn't cost America a cent and claimed no American lives.

Mr. Bush says failure in Iraq is unthinkable. "Every friend of America in Iraq would be betrayed to prison and murder, as a new tyranny arose," he said last week. "Every enemy of America in the world would celebrate, proclaiming our weakness and decadence, and using that victory to recruit a new generation of killers."

Mr. Johnson had a similar view of retreat from Vietnam. He feared that victory for the Communists would lead quickly to falling dominoes among neighbouring pro-American countries and give inspiration to enemies of the United States everywhere. The Communists took power in Cambodia and Laos in 1975, along with South Vietnam, but they got no further in the region.

Mr. Johnson's goal in Vietnam was limited: defend South Vietnam. Mr. Bush's far more ambitious agenda for Iraq is to create a democracy for neighbouring Arab countries to emulate. Will Americans have the patience needed to achieve that goal? In Vietnam, war weariness set in, and America was out.

Vietnam forced Mr. Johnson into retirement; he shunned a re-election bid in 1968. His Democratic Party, fractured over Vietnam, lost the White House that November.

In contrast, retirement does not seem to have crossed Mr. Bush's mind. Fellow Republicans are largely united behind him as he seeks another four years in office.

(Source: Globe and Mail)