Iraq: "Vietnam on steroids" revisited

General William Westmoreland, a 1960s era Petraeus


Iraq: "Vietnam on steroids" revisited
Tuesday, September 18, 2007


When Bush launched the Iraq invasion, it was common for war opponents to warn: "this is going to be Vietnam on steroids." And it was, in the sense that, just like the Vietnamese, Iraqis didn't take kindly to being occupied by huge foreigners, swathed in modern armor, unconstrained in their use of violence, who knew nothing of their history, religion, cultures or language.

Unlike the Vietnamese, the Iraqi resistance does not have a popular, widely legitimate, leadership. But the U.S. invasion has empowered various groups to fight and manipulate the occupier while concurrently taking aim at each other. The "Vietnam on steroids" metaphor had diminished currency as the Iraqi civil war took center stage.

Lately our rulers have revived the metaphor for their own purposes, not only in Bush's absurd effort to pump up the "stab in the back" myth about our lost Indochina war, but also by trotting out an ambitious, television-savvy general to try to sell continued mayhem to a weary public.

What will happen in Iraq will happen. The U.S. has lost that war and will eventually get out; the Iraqis will make us leave -- here in the U.S., most of us see no point in getting more of our young people killed.

Democratic would-be Presidents can dither all they want. What do they mean by withdraw all "combat" troops? Any troops they leave in Iraq who aren't "combat" troops will rapidly become dead bodies. All of this discussion is irrelevant -- the Iraqis will eventually boot us out of their destroyed country.

Where it is important to look at the "Vietnam on steroids" metaphor today is on the home front. Wars, especially failed imperial wars, have consequences -- this one, in addition to exposing the fragility of our economic system as the United States government goes further in hock to China to pay for it, is changing our political culture in ways reminiscent of Vietnam.

Rest of article at: http://happening-here.blogspot.com/