Vietnam and Iraq
As my regular readers know, I've been quite critical of comparisons betwen Iraq and Vietnam. But, our friend Instapundit posts an e-mail from his readers that so completely misses the point that it needs to be addressed.
This is a strawman non-argument that is, to put it bluntly, pure bullshit.
First off, it completely ignores the nature of America's entrance into Vietnam, which is the reason I usually am loathe to compare Iraq to Vietnam, that America entered a war that had been going on for 14 years (that is, if we set the entrance into Vietnam at 1964, America had already a considerable presense before that, though). As thus, we had inherited a resistance movement that was already quite organized, effective, had strong popular support, was the sole source of anti-colonial resistance, and had managed to take control of half the country. Taking into account the Vietnamese perspective, the war actually had been going on for close to a hundred years, since the French conquest of Indochina. Which makes the above anti-analogy fall apart even more. The French had a relatively easy time conquering Indochina, but that fact sure didn't help them out in 1954.
Secondly, the above argument completely ignores the point of the Vietnam analogies. It's not about the military and tactical victories, we had our fair share of major tactical victories in Vietnam as well, it's about getting America into a quagmire that we can't get ourselves out of. Although anti-American resistance in Iraq is not at the level as anti-colonial resistance in Vietnam, and it likely never will be, it will likely only get more organized and stronger as time goes on.
Frankly, the above argument is saying that since Iraq isn't exactly parallel to Vietnam, it is incomparable to Vietnam. That is a fallacy. I don't like analogies between Iraq and Vietnam, I think they're overused, and the conflicts really are similar only in the broadest context, in that they are both guerilla wars that US shouldn't have been involved with. But the comparisons aren't as weak as Instapundit (or his readers in this case) claim.
As my regular readers know, I've been quite critical of comparisons betwen Iraq and Vietnam. But, our friend Instapundit posts an e-mail from his readers that so completely misses the point that it needs to be addressed.
The anti-war types keep comparing Iraq to Vietnam. This has made me think...
If less than a year after US troops first landed in Vietnam, they had occupied all of North Vietnam, had Ho Chi Minh and General Giap dead or in custody, had an interim government in place, and were preparing for free elections (which of course in actuality Vietnam still doesn't have forty years later), all for under five hundred combat casulaties, that wouldn't have been such a bad outcome.
Of course people will say the situations aren't comparable. That's right -- they aren't comparable, so people should stop trying to make bogus analogies between the two situations.
This is a strawman non-argument that is, to put it bluntly, pure bullshit.
First off, it completely ignores the nature of America's entrance into Vietnam, which is the reason I usually am loathe to compare Iraq to Vietnam, that America entered a war that had been going on for 14 years (that is, if we set the entrance into Vietnam at 1964, America had already a considerable presense before that, though). As thus, we had inherited a resistance movement that was already quite organized, effective, had strong popular support, was the sole source of anti-colonial resistance, and had managed to take control of half the country. Taking into account the Vietnamese perspective, the war actually had been going on for close to a hundred years, since the French conquest of Indochina. Which makes the above anti-analogy fall apart even more. The French had a relatively easy time conquering Indochina, but that fact sure didn't help them out in 1954.
Secondly, the above argument completely ignores the point of the Vietnam analogies. It's not about the military and tactical victories, we had our fair share of major tactical victories in Vietnam as well, it's about getting America into a quagmire that we can't get ourselves out of. Although anti-American resistance in Iraq is not at the level as anti-colonial resistance in Vietnam, and it likely never will be, it will likely only get more organized and stronger as time goes on.
Frankly, the above argument is saying that since Iraq isn't exactly parallel to Vietnam, it is incomparable to Vietnam. That is a fallacy. I don't like analogies between Iraq and Vietnam, I think they're overused, and the conflicts really are similar only in the broadest context, in that they are both guerilla wars that US shouldn't have been involved with. But the comparisons aren't as weak as Instapundit (or his readers in this case) claim.
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