Iraq= Viet Nam? Wrong analogy

On the surface, they sure seem alike. Ass deep in a civil war, don't know who the enemy is, creating an entire continent of enemies.

But there are key differences, as I see it. Without advocating on behalf of Saddam, who was a murderous, genocidal, power-hungry despot (albeit one we nurtured, created and paid), he took a country with a number of ethnic and religiously diverse peoples, and through brutality and foreign money and weapons managed to stifle both dissent and internecine bloodshed. Not pretty, not advisable, but the reality in place five years ago.

Saddam is the contemporary equivalent of Yugoslavia's Tito; who ruled in much the same way with much the same outcome. When Tito was ousted, blood-hatreds that had festered for hundreds of years emerged out into the open, and created the bloodbath known as Serbia, and Kosovo.

Both were essentially civil wars that had been kept in check for years by despots; both events were eminently predictable should those pigs be removed; and neither event had any plans in place to stop the blood in the street once the floodgates were opened.

With Serbia, at least, we managed to cooperatively get in and out, bring about a resolution without loss of american lives.

With Iraq, we tipped over the hornets nest intentionally, intentionally ignored plans to win the peace, and sent in an american army with bullseyes painted on their backs that said occupying army.

when Dick Cheney finally arrives at the Hades Hilton,I hope Saddam is there to show him the ropes.

Merry Christmas to all. and to those who started this war, and continued it, and lied about it, and lie about, and will continue to lie about until we find some pathetic excuse to get out of that shooting gallery, I wish you the Christmas you deserve.

And to the men and women fighting to protect the constitution overseas, where George Bush seems to think it has more vaslue than here in the United States, I wish nothing more than the safest, quickest flight back home, where we will all spend election day, 2008 reading the constitution aloud one block from every election hall, along with the names of brothers and sisters
who died in Iraq and afganistan.

Love the soldier, hate the war. Merry Christmas to all, and kiss your children after they've fallen asleep. And promise them no more Iraqs.

whalerider55

And in the bases in the area we established to run the Kosovo operation. We are somewhat like the mafia: we get into your affairs when you are desperate and then there is no good way to get rid of us.

Other than that there are none. In Vietnam we were engaged against a foreign country (North Vietnam) with the third largest standing army on earth. US soldiers were engaged on the most part with NVA conventional soldiers, wearing uniforms and fairly well equipped. The cities were completely safe except for a small amount of crime normally associated with large cities. So safe in fact US troops were forbidden to carry firearms into them. When we engaged against the enemy it was in the jungles and the highlands. We knew who our enemy was and we had respect for them. There were no tribal animosities creating the conflict except with the possible exception of the Montenards which were considered by the Vietnamese people to be inferior beings that needed to be kept in "their place". The majority of the Vietnames people living in both North Vietnam and South Vietnam wished for re-unification. It was mainly the puppet government the "west" set up that was opposed. Vietnam Conflict was a mistake but it was one that had it's beginnings from WW II. Iraq is a pre-planned invasion strictly for "war profiteering".