vietnam vs. iraq
Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 9:44 pm
John,
It seems like you lean a little to the proverbial "right" regarding the US military and foreign affairs,
(pragmatical centrist leaning a bit right)
so I'll pose this thread to you. The other day I was out at dinner with
some friends and the Iraq War became the topic of conversation. Anyway, both my friend and I are anti-Bush (this has nothing to do with party affiliation or ideologies, just simple compitency), but we found we disagreed 180 degrees on the topic of withdrawal from our current situation.
He took the position that to pull out now would only signal a major victory to the terrorists, leave a vacuum in Iraq, and lose credibility around the world. These are the party-lines within the military hierarchy as well as the Executive Branch these days.
I can tell you right now, that I found his arguement so lame with "what ifs" that it made me want to throw up. There were no tangibles to support this line of reasoning in my book. Let me take it by the point: will the terrorists consider this a victory? Probably, but so what? Does anyone think that by staying in this no-win environment that we will suddenly make terrorism go away? Be serious and wake up world. I'll tell you how to stop terrorism against the US....start sending the terrorists money and weapons like France, China, and N. Korea, and denounce Israel. Then they'll leave you alone. Staying, or withdrawing from Iraq won't mean a thing. Doesn't remind us of the old Dominoe Theory back in the days of the Cold War? If we leave Vietnam, all of SE Asia will go communist. Burma, India, and the Middle East would be next. Once again, guess what? We left in 1973, and it never happened! In fact, one could argue that Communism was on a decline from that point on.
(As I noted in my post i view Israel as a state created by the UN which the see as an unnaceptable Crusader State)
Second point....we'll leave a power vacuum in Iraq. Guess what? There already is. We went in and got Saddam out of power, but now we are smack dab in a middle of a civil war which there is no winner. They won't stop fighting there because just like in Vietnam, all they have is TIME. They are under no political or social rush to conclude this war. WE, on the other hand, are. We are fighting and dying for a thought that was never clear, and thus, impossible to attain. We couldn't get the Vietnamese to love us, nor can we get the Iraqis to love us. There is so much more time invested in hate there then we acknowledge, that it would take decades of reeducation (sound like Vietnam) before we could start with a clean slate in the Middle East.
(I do not agree that military victory was or is unattainable in either war-the question is : Is it worth it ? )
Lastly, our prestige around the globe would be threatened? I can't believe anyone would care. WE ARE NOT in a Cold War anymore. We are not competing for spheres of influence with the Soviet Union, instead, we are all by ourselves in the class of "Superpower". If we pulled out all of our forces now, first of all, we could still leave enough naval and air presence in the area to deal with any threat, but more importantly, do we really care that France would think less of us? Oh my God, Sierra Leone, thinks we're weak! They are laughing at us in Iceland. The only people this would hurt is the Republican Party because they are in power at present. This is a world economy that depends on the US. The world will continue to trade, etc. regardless of what we do here. We had a lot more prestige to lose in Vietnam, and we did, but we bounced back in short time, but this time stronger and presumably a the "Big Guy on the Block", somehow we are not going to learn by history. Instead, we'll make the same mistakes and honor the dead later.
(I am confused, is Vietnam not like Iraq because it was during a Cold War time frame, or vice versa? I do not think we had more prestige on the line in Vietnam. )
What a shame!
mike
It seems like you lean a little to the proverbial "right" regarding the US military and foreign affairs,
(pragmatical centrist leaning a bit right)
so I'll pose this thread to you. The other day I was out at dinner with
some friends and the Iraq War became the topic of conversation. Anyway, both my friend and I are anti-Bush (this has nothing to do with party affiliation or ideologies, just simple compitency), but we found we disagreed 180 degrees on the topic of withdrawal from our current situation.
He took the position that to pull out now would only signal a major victory to the terrorists, leave a vacuum in Iraq, and lose credibility around the world. These are the party-lines within the military hierarchy as well as the Executive Branch these days.
I can tell you right now, that I found his arguement so lame with "what ifs" that it made me want to throw up. There were no tangibles to support this line of reasoning in my book. Let me take it by the point: will the terrorists consider this a victory? Probably, but so what? Does anyone think that by staying in this no-win environment that we will suddenly make terrorism go away? Be serious and wake up world. I'll tell you how to stop terrorism against the US....start sending the terrorists money and weapons like France, China, and N. Korea, and denounce Israel. Then they'll leave you alone. Staying, or withdrawing from Iraq won't mean a thing. Doesn't remind us of the old Dominoe Theory back in the days of the Cold War? If we leave Vietnam, all of SE Asia will go communist. Burma, India, and the Middle East would be next. Once again, guess what? We left in 1973, and it never happened! In fact, one could argue that Communism was on a decline from that point on.
(As I noted in my post i view Israel as a state created by the UN which the see as an unnaceptable Crusader State)
Second point....we'll leave a power vacuum in Iraq. Guess what? There already is. We went in and got Saddam out of power, but now we are smack dab in a middle of a civil war which there is no winner. They won't stop fighting there because just like in Vietnam, all they have is TIME. They are under no political or social rush to conclude this war. WE, on the other hand, are. We are fighting and dying for a thought that was never clear, and thus, impossible to attain. We couldn't get the Vietnamese to love us, nor can we get the Iraqis to love us. There is so much more time invested in hate there then we acknowledge, that it would take decades of reeducation (sound like Vietnam) before we could start with a clean slate in the Middle East.
(I do not agree that military victory was or is unattainable in either war-the question is : Is it worth it ? )
Lastly, our prestige around the globe would be threatened? I can't believe anyone would care. WE ARE NOT in a Cold War anymore. We are not competing for spheres of influence with the Soviet Union, instead, we are all by ourselves in the class of "Superpower". If we pulled out all of our forces now, first of all, we could still leave enough naval and air presence in the area to deal with any threat, but more importantly, do we really care that France would think less of us? Oh my God, Sierra Leone, thinks we're weak! They are laughing at us in Iceland. The only people this would hurt is the Republican Party because they are in power at present. This is a world economy that depends on the US. The world will continue to trade, etc. regardless of what we do here. We had a lot more prestige to lose in Vietnam, and we did, but we bounced back in short time, but this time stronger and presumably a the "Big Guy on the Block", somehow we are not going to learn by history. Instead, we'll make the same mistakes and honor the dead later.
(I am confused, is Vietnam not like Iraq because it was during a Cold War time frame, or vice versa? I do not think we had more prestige on the line in Vietnam. )
What a shame!
mike