Guardian: Two years on, the echoes of Vietnam are getting louder

[muriel_volestrangler]

Yeah, that may be bleedin' obvious to the average DUer, but Max Hastings is a generally right-wing journalist (he used to edit the Daily Telegraph), who also reported from Vietnam. The piece seems to indicate he is losing what optimism he had for a peaceful outcome in Iraq. The documentary he talks about looks interesting - I didn't see it, but I'll try to find out more.

"We're trying to save their lives," said an exasperated officer about the Iraqis, "but they're not helping us by getting in our way." Soldiers quizzing local people through interpreters on a house search are young men from Ohio or Wyoming, Georgia or New Jersey. Yet cocooned in helmets and sunglasses, body armour and weapons that conceal almost every inch of flesh, they do not seem human at all. They resemble the robot legionaries of Darth Vader.

The doctrine of "force protection" - making preservation of American lives the first mission priority - has made US forces unconvincing peacekeepers in Somalia and the Balkans, Vietnam and Lebanon. So, too, has insensitivity about the interests of the people they are allegedly fighting to help.

There was a powerful scene in the TV film, in which a bored and jumpy soldier impulsively put a bullet into a dog. Its owner emerged from his house, bent over his pet's corpse for a moment, then walked away, throwing up his hands in impotent misery. Whatever commanded that man's loyalty six months ago, who can doubt which side he is on today.

"This is Indian territory ... If we meet the enemy, we shall overwhelm him with combat power," said the unit's colonel, briefing his officers for an operation. After an emotional episode in which the whole regiment learned live on the radio about the death on patrol of one of its men, the colonel warned: "I don't want to hear anyone say anyone's dead on the net, right?"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1513338,00.html

'Indian territory'? Sad to think they keep alive that metaphor - and I wonder if they thionk it through - that Indian territory was land the US was taking by force from its inhabitants.