Here comes another Vietnam!
Iraqis understand how to defeat the U.S. military machine, and they are;
America, here comes another Vietnam!
By Stewart Nusbaumer
With each Iraqi our military kills, more Iraqis join the insurgency. The longer our troops occupy Iraq, the better Iraqi insurgents become at killing our troops. In Iraq, violence is a great recruiter, and time is a wise teacher.
We are losing in Iraq, and next year we will be losing more. Iraq is our second Vietnam.
Tonight on ABC evening news, a U.S. military general whined: "There are no front lines in Iraq, they can be anywhere." It was a jarring flashback, the general sounding exactly like a general speaking about Vietnam.
American political leaders insisted we would wipe out those Iraqi terrorists and criminals in no time, but it didn't happen. Just like in Vietnam.
The U.S. media insisted that nearly all Iraqis welcomed U.S. occupation and that Iraqis would love Americans for giving them democracy and freedom. But Iraqi insurgents are killing Americans, and U.S.-trained Iraqi troops refuse to die for the U.S. occupation of their country. In Vietnam, Vietnamization failed. In Iraq, Iraqization is failing.
In the Mekong Delta, an Army officer said, "We had to destroy the village to save it." In Iraq, an Army officer said that the destroyed Fallujah is now "free."
Last week we were told that many of the roads in Iraq are too dangerous for U.S. armed truck convoys, forcing our military to use aircraft to ferry supplies to outer bases. Vietnam taught us that when you give up the land, you give up the people; when you leave the roads, you have lost the war.
Yesterday we learned that 18 U.S. soldiers died in, as The New York Times put it, "one of the deadliest attacks on American forces in Iraq." What The New York Times did not say is that these "deadliest attacks on American forces" will continue and will become more deadly. We have killed 100,000 Iraqis: children, wives and husbands, mothers and fathers, grandparents, neighbors, cousins, aunts and uncles, school friends--we have killed so many Iraqis that there is a limitless supply of outraged Iraqis who want to kill Americans.
Americans believed the recycled myth that as a superpower we have super power--a silly, dangerous idea that has led us directly into another bloody Vietnam-type quagmire. Believing our military technology can incinerate any ragtag opponent, hubristic thinking (or the suspension of thinking) enabled us to also bury history. Our national hubris obliterated the memory that those ragtag Vietnamese defeated the world's greatest military, our military.
Like the Vietnamese, the Iraqis will not fight a war that allows U.S. war technology to be effective; and the U.S. is incapable of defeating the Iraqis because its counterinsurgency warfare is ineffective. So the war will drag on. But the Iraqis understand that they do not have to win the war against the United States, merely not lose the war. They only have to stay clear of the overwhelming firepower of the U.S. military and survive another day, another month, another year.
The latest public opinion polls show that Americans are growing frustrated with the war and wary of the Bush Administration's handling of the war; over 60 percent are disturbed with the way the war is going. In the media we hear it is going badly because the Bush Administration did not plan for the peace. Fox News insists that liberal war dissenters are betraying our soldiers; a man in Nebraska screams that the media is defeating our war effort. Just like Vietnam.
During the Vietnam era, we heard that America lost the war because of the cowardly politicians, the unpatriotic antiwar demonstrators, and the traitorous media. The truth is, we could not have won in Vietnam, and we cannot win now in Iraq. The world of insurgents understands our military and knows how to wear down the great military leviathan. Our chances of winning in Iraq are the same as they were in Vietnam: zero.
-Stewart Nusbaumer is editor of Intervention Magazine. He served with the U.S. Marine Corps in Vietnam on the DMZ. You can email him at Stewart@interventionmag.com
The URL for this story is:
http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules...article&sid=961
America, here comes another Vietnam!
By Stewart Nusbaumer
With each Iraqi our military kills, more Iraqis join the insurgency. The longer our troops occupy Iraq, the better Iraqi insurgents become at killing our troops. In Iraq, violence is a great recruiter, and time is a wise teacher.
We are losing in Iraq, and next year we will be losing more. Iraq is our second Vietnam.
Tonight on ABC evening news, a U.S. military general whined: "There are no front lines in Iraq, they can be anywhere." It was a jarring flashback, the general sounding exactly like a general speaking about Vietnam.
American political leaders insisted we would wipe out those Iraqi terrorists and criminals in no time, but it didn't happen. Just like in Vietnam.
The U.S. media insisted that nearly all Iraqis welcomed U.S. occupation and that Iraqis would love Americans for giving them democracy and freedom. But Iraqi insurgents are killing Americans, and U.S.-trained Iraqi troops refuse to die for the U.S. occupation of their country. In Vietnam, Vietnamization failed. In Iraq, Iraqization is failing.
In the Mekong Delta, an Army officer said, "We had to destroy the village to save it." In Iraq, an Army officer said that the destroyed Fallujah is now "free."
Last week we were told that many of the roads in Iraq are too dangerous for U.S. armed truck convoys, forcing our military to use aircraft to ferry supplies to outer bases. Vietnam taught us that when you give up the land, you give up the people; when you leave the roads, you have lost the war.
Yesterday we learned that 18 U.S. soldiers died in, as The New York Times put it, "one of the deadliest attacks on American forces in Iraq." What The New York Times did not say is that these "deadliest attacks on American forces" will continue and will become more deadly. We have killed 100,000 Iraqis: children, wives and husbands, mothers and fathers, grandparents, neighbors, cousins, aunts and uncles, school friends--we have killed so many Iraqis that there is a limitless supply of outraged Iraqis who want to kill Americans.
Americans believed the recycled myth that as a superpower we have super power--a silly, dangerous idea that has led us directly into another bloody Vietnam-type quagmire. Believing our military technology can incinerate any ragtag opponent, hubristic thinking (or the suspension of thinking) enabled us to also bury history. Our national hubris obliterated the memory that those ragtag Vietnamese defeated the world's greatest military, our military.
Like the Vietnamese, the Iraqis will not fight a war that allows U.S. war technology to be effective; and the U.S. is incapable of defeating the Iraqis because its counterinsurgency warfare is ineffective. So the war will drag on. But the Iraqis understand that they do not have to win the war against the United States, merely not lose the war. They only have to stay clear of the overwhelming firepower of the U.S. military and survive another day, another month, another year.
The latest public opinion polls show that Americans are growing frustrated with the war and wary of the Bush Administration's handling of the war; over 60 percent are disturbed with the way the war is going. In the media we hear it is going badly because the Bush Administration did not plan for the peace. Fox News insists that liberal war dissenters are betraying our soldiers; a man in Nebraska screams that the media is defeating our war effort. Just like Vietnam.
During the Vietnam era, we heard that America lost the war because of the cowardly politicians, the unpatriotic antiwar demonstrators, and the traitorous media. The truth is, we could not have won in Vietnam, and we cannot win now in Iraq. The world of insurgents understands our military and knows how to wear down the great military leviathan. Our chances of winning in Iraq are the same as they were in Vietnam: zero.
-Stewart Nusbaumer is editor of Intervention Magazine. He served with the U.S. Marine Corps in Vietnam on the DMZ. You can email him at Stewart@interventionmag.com
The URL for this story is:
http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules...article&sid=961
posted by Thaqalain | Thursday, December 30, 2004
1 Comments:
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