Iraq IS like Vietnam!
By Doug Edelman (12/12/05)
Everywhere you look today, the 60's and 70's are being "replayed". Retro is "in". Even the TV and Movie industries are re-treading the old movies and sitcoms of those days. Ah, the nostalgia! (Or lack of current creativity. but that's a matter for another discussion.)
And lately we're being subjected to the incessant drone from the Left that Vietnam is being "rerun" in Iraq. This is done by the Left to invoke the negative associations that still linger with the Vietnam experience. As such, the attempt to link Iraq and Vietnam evokes an almost kneejerk rejection by the Right. But not so fast.
There are INDEED a number of parallels we SHOULD examine.
Both wars were geographically limited, but represented a battle between opposing ideologies which overshadowed the regional conflict.
Both wars presented an enemy which wore no national uniform, but instead was difficult to distinguish from the civilian population.
In both wars a high percentage of casualties were caused by booby-traps rather than by conventional combat.
The President that initiated the hostilities in both cases also cut taxes, which successfully stimulated the economy and increased revenues.
The President in both wars called upon the American People to make sacrifices. To show resolve. Both presidents took risks to stand up to powerful despotic enemies.
Militarily, the US dominated in both wars.
The opposition to both wars started with a small group of militant leftists who were initially dismissed as loonytunes. but soon they had enlisted the aid of the mainstream media and Hollywood celebrities. The anti-war noise became louder and louder until it actually began affecting the prosecution of the wars.
Journalists on the scene in Vietnam punctuated the anti-war sentiment with war footage beamed into the livingrooms of America. Embedded journalists in Iraq pepper today's newscasts with any negative image they can find, while willfully ignoring stories which reflect positively on our military or the mission.
Politics and political-correctness prevented our victory in Vietnam despite our winning every battle fought. This is being replayed in Iraq.
President Nixon was pressured into a precipitous withdrawal from Vietnam without completing the mission. Under the colossal misnomer, "Peace with Honor" we scrambled out of Vietnam - with neither Peace nor Honor. The Murthas and Deans and Pelosi's of today's left would have us do the same again today in Iraq.
Let us take heed. "Those who fail to remember history are doomed to repeat it." "Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result". "If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always got."
A premature and ill-advised withdrawal from Vietnam resulted in the hardly peaceful takeover of Vietnam by the communists. We fled, leaving behind the Pol Pot Killing Fields. Imagine the bloodbath in Iraq if we left before they're ready to maintain their own security.
After hightailing it out of Southeast Asia, America's influence and credibility suffered for decades (till Reagan!). The US Economy TANKED (Remember the Ford/Carter years?) The leftists brought about the MISERY INDEX (a function of double digit inflation, unemployment and interest rates!)
Do we REALLY want to "re-run" all THAT nostalgia?
Copyright © 2005 by Doug Edelman
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