Iraq is the Arabic Word for Vietnam !

Discussion in 'World Events' started by Proud_Syrian, Nov 2, 2003.

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  2. DeeCee Valued Senior Member

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    Hush now Syrian.
    Don't say the 'V' word too loudly, it upsets the Americans

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    Dee Cee
     
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  4. te jen Registered Senior Member

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    Accelerated History

    But it took us about four years after Tet to realize we couldn't win in Vietnam and to start withdrawing our trrops. This time it will be a lot faster. Dead Americans will be shipped home at a faster and faster rate over the next six months, and the next U.S. election will become a referendum on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A Democrat will win the presidency under terms that will make it impossible for us to stay in these two countries.

    I look for a withdrawal of American forces in the winter of 2004-2005. Might as well do it right now.
     
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  6. Spyke Registered Senior Member

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    Nah. McNamara admitted that they knew during the Johnson administration that we couldn't win. It's just that when Nixon came in, he had to bomb Hanoi to the negotiating table so we could withdraw with honor, whatever that is.
     
  7. hypewaders Save Changes Registered Senior Member

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    Quibble over details if you like, but the trend is obvious.
     
  8. Unregistered The Original Conservative Registered Senior Member

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    It is always amusing...

    It is always amusing when the Vietnam-Iraq comparison comes up. I find it difficult to liken the two at all, it's not in anyway like we couldn't strategically win the war with Iraq--we already have with little to no resistance at all. A very very small number of the troops in Iraq died, obviously considerably less then in Vietnam, more than tenfold less.

    The only quandry with Iraw is the rebuilding process--which has more to do with economics then war.


    unreg
     
  9. hypewaders Save Changes Registered Senior Member

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    We have not succeeded strategically in Iraq, because none of the ostensible, and none of the likely covert objectives have been achieved.

    We (Americans) can't lead the efforts to rebuild a country where we are despised.

    You can't accomplish anything with any group of people who resent your presence. Increasingly, the primarily thing Iraqis can agree on is that they resent US-controlled occupation and government.
     
  10. Spyke Registered Senior Member

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    :bugeye: Who's quibbling? McNamara said it. Simple enough to understand.

    We can't win in Iraq. At least not achieve what we said were our original goals. We can get extremely brutal and level the country, of course, and achieve the strategic win you speak of, of course, but what irony that would beTo win we will have to brutalize a people we claimed to be liberating from brutality.
     
  11. hypewaders Save Changes Registered Senior Member

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    That McNamara "said it" was not nearly as significant as were the implications when the center of gravity of US opinion turned against that earlier, but similarly unprovoked, unsustainable, and catastrophic occupation of Vietnam.
     
  12. Spyke Registered Senior Member

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    Which has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the Johnson administration knew long before "about four years after Tet" that the war was unwinnable. The fact that the administration knew they couldn't win as early as '68 is very fucking significant to those who died there after that date, and their families. The point is not when public opinion was swayed, but when our leadership already realized they were in an unwinnable war.
     
  13. hypewaders Save Changes Registered Senior Member

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    Then as now, leaders prefer saving face to saving lives, and to genuinely bolstering international security and interests.

    There's hope and fear in witnessing the acceleration of history: American public opinion is going to turn much faster this time than it did in the Vietnam era (I expect US occupation forces will escalate late this year, and begin withdrawal in 2004). Unfortunately, under accelerated history the damage to US economy and society will be much greater than was that caused by the US occupation of Vietnam. Ouch.
     
  14. Re: It is always amusing...

    It is also amusing to see how you can erase the circumstances suronding the two countries.

    Iraq was already a broken state when you attacked it ( and that is why you DONT DARE to attack N.Korea ), the Iraqi army was a joke after 12 years of sanctions.

    The iraqi resistance is NOT supported by giant states as was the case in Vietnam ( Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China )....
     
  15. nico Banned Banned

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    You can't compare really Iraq to Vietnam militarily, due to different circumstances that these two countries offer. One a flat, sandy topography, and the other a rough, foliage full, even muddy topography. What u can compare is the political impact of rebellion, which in Vietnam the Americans were trying to suppress in South Vietnam (suppression and South Vietnam go together like milk and honey.) Anyways the American people are not used to actual resistance to their "superior way of life". Many Americans tend not to question the motive but the effect of war. I don't think Americans actually doubt that Saddam had WMD. Rather I think that they are angry that the strategy has failed. That is the fundamental problem with American society, they don’t realize or care about their motives, they only care about themselves. Vietnam, Grenada, Iraq, have shown this tact to be the American way. Sadly this will never change.
     
  16. Vortexx Skull & Bones Spokesman Registered Senior Member

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    I said it before and I say it again:

    Sell south iraq to iran, this way The sjiites will be ruled by their own people and the u.s. can establish a peacefull relationship with teheran and make some money in the process and also it will be easier to install some puppet regime for sunnite middle iraq.

    I guess only some (not all, but at least the believers in "strong arm politics") israeli influence in Washington might be against a deal like that for it would allow the iranians to move their middle-range missiles more towards israeli borders, however, it's only a matter of time before they have long range missiles, so fro a pragmatic perspective I would take the oppertunity to make some deal with Iran, it would be a good headstart for a middle-east wide peacesolution....

    It's a simple fact of life, that there will be always continious struggle and resistance of any ethnicity for controlling their own piece of land, no matter if it's Kurds, sunnite, Israeli, Palestine, Sjiite, Bosnian, Croatian etc. Even if they are ruled by some dictatorship, they prefer their own devil than a foreign devil...

    So the only long term lasting peace guarantuee will be to actually give every ethnicity their basic territory , it is as simple as that. However it will not work as long as some groups want more than the basiq territitory that can be accepted at some negoiation table. For instance , Ambitions of some radical Kurds ,to also claim land in South Turkey or Zionist settlers to extend the holy land towards Jordania, or fundamental sunnits to extend the arabia peninsula towards the shores of Tel Avive, will be a continious twisting thorn in the side of any peace attempt. Maybe some of them do not believe in the negotiation table, but rather peace through power and big walls around occupied territories etc, but this is a fallacy, because you can put people down and in the corner, try to disarm them and opress them, but that doesn't kill the fire in their hearts and they WILL find some way to haunt you, if you can have a good nights sleep with that idea, pleaze dream on....
     
    Last edited: Nov 3, 2003
  17. Spyke Registered Senior Member

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    I agree. Nixon was worried about his '72 reelection, then after that hoping that withdrawing with honor from Vietnam would win the Republicans the '76 election. The administration will continue telling the American people that tragedies such as the shooting down of the Chinook are merely minor problems that no way reflect the bigger picture in Iraq. To admit anything else only opens the door wider for the Democrats in '04. They will continue this approach, as did McNamara and Westmoreland all through the mid-'60s, until another equivalent of the Tet Offensive explodes in their faces and they can't keep a lid on it any longer.

    We know he had them. What we don't know is if he had them in the months leading up to March 2003.
     
  18. nico Banned Banned

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    What we don't know is if he had them in the months leading up to March 2003.

    Meaning he didn't have them. The assertions against his regime were made in those "months" if there doubts then why not let the UN do its job of inspecting? The US made a dramatic err in Iraq, and there is no justification for that. I mean if America was so ensure then why this comment?

    To the contrary indeed Mr. Bush, to the contrary indeed. If he was so SURE, then where are they? No excuse could justify a illegal, and even a causeless war!
     
  19. Vortexx Skull & Bones Spokesman Registered Senior Member

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    Surely it wasn't a causeless war, but it must have been some other cause than WMD, anybody?
     
  20. Stokes Pennwalt Nuke them from orbit. Registered Senior Member

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    Hooray for inaccurate historical parallels!
     
  21. Vortexx Skull & Bones Spokesman Registered Senior Member

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    Stokes is right, Nam was an apple-misstake and Iraq an Orange-misstake, all these ignorant liberals think they can compare apples and oranges with their stupid "told you so" attitude whilst shouting from the irrelevant sidelines, meanwhile real men make real history on the battlefield and historybooks will prove us right. Our chief-editor at Time-Warner will see to that.
     
  22. Vortexx Skull & Bones Spokesman Registered Senior Member

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    Ok, I figured that if there was no deterministic connection between the war and WMD than it must be have been a matter of quantum mechanics: an experiment to see if Schrodingers cat is hiding with osama in Saddams bunker...
     

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