Not your brother’s Vietnam

by John S. Pappas - 04/18/04

Of late, Democrats have been increasingly critical of the American effort in Iraq. A few weeks ago, Senator Ted Kennedy claimed that Iraq had become George Bush’s Vietnam. With the recent U.S. & coalition casualties in Iraq, members of the western press have begun to ask if Senator Kennedy could be correct. That Senator Kennedy and others assert that Iraq is another Vietnam displays a lack of understanding of either war.

Since Bush announced an end to major fighting, the Democrats and the press have played a game of gotcha with Bush on every coalition casualty. Some Democrats have repeatedly characterized the Iraq effort as a “quagmire,” a phrase meant to connotate Vietnam. The press for their part has taken every opportunity to splash breaking news of U.S. and coalition deaths.

Those opposed to the war in Iraq use the Vietnam analogy for Iraq in order to associate the war with an un-winnable effort. This is not the legacy of Vietnam however. Vietnam left a stain on America not because we wasted lives in an un-winnable war, but rather because we bowed to political pressure at home and walked away from a war we were winning, abandoning our allies to defeat.

Senators Kennedy, Jon Corzine and others have used the recent increase in violence and subsequent U.S. deaths to imply that the war in Iraq is a disaster resulting from failed policy. The irony is that while these Senators criticize America’s involvement in Iraq as Vietnam-like, adopting the policies they espouse would ensure a Vietnam-like result. Beyond this, recent events in Iraq do not validate the Kennedy/Corzine viewpoint.

In the first week of April, individuals sympathetic to Saddam’s regime and insurgents performed cowardly attacks on American civilians and desecrated the bodies in Falluja. While America responded to this atrocity, a chubby Mullah in the south called on his followers to attack Americans, resulting in violence in southern Iraqi cities. The Iraqi police, and European military stationed in those cities abandoned their posts in the face of the militant attacks, leaving the U.S. to respond.

U.S. forces did respond and the press has told us repeatedly that the ensuing battles in Falluja and the south resulted in the deaths of over 80 U.S. Soldiers and Marines, 70 in one week. In contrast however, the death toll of the enemy has not been much discussed, unless it is in stories where the U.S. is being accused of killing civilians. The number being bantered about is “10 times” the amount of coalition deaths. It is at least that.

While the mainstream press has painted a picture of a situation in Iraq turning out of control, the violence is being contained or where appropriate, U.S. forces are launching new attacks.

In Falluja, the Marines halted offensive operations purportedly to allow food and medicine in and women and children out. The undeclared reasons for the suspension of offensive operations were the resignations of two Iraqi Governing Council members and threats of resignation from others. In resigning the members sighted U.S. heavy-handedness and civilian casualties in Falluja. As some interviewed Marines have reported however, U.S. forces were smashing insurgents and bathist fighters in Falluja, not civilians. U.S. estimates of insurgent deaths in Falluja neared 1,000 in one week, which will increase exponentially if insurgents refuse to surrender after the women and children have left.

Fighting in the southern cities produced similar results by U.S. Forces. The mistakes made by the insurgents and Shi’ite and Sunni militants over the past two weeks was first in deciding to fight the American military and second in assembling with the intention of doing so. This presented the Americans with a target.

The recent fighting in Falluja and the cities in the south may be the beginning of the end of the war in Iraq. In desperation the insurgents have taken to seizing foreign hostages and killing them. But if it is not the end of the war, the U.S. efforts in Iraq will continue until victory is secured.

President Bush declared in his White House press conference April 13th; “Weeks such as we've had in Iraq make some doubt whether or not we're making progress. I understand that. It was a tough, tough period. But we are making progress. And my message today to those in Iraq is, we'll stay the course, we'll complete the job.” President Bush understands that the lesson of Vietnam is that once America commits lives to a fight, it must commit to finish it.

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