Remember the Tet Offensive?

[Rufus T. Firefly]

There have been a lot of attacks in Iraq for the war anniversary, and it got me thinking - is it possible the guerrillas are planning a big coordinated series of attacks (actual military operations, seizing our embassy, etc.), maybe around 16 October 2004 - the beginning of Ramadan, as an anti-October "surprise?" Sure, the power handover is this summer, but we'll still have troops there. But even if it's against the Iraqi government, that would still be very bad for *.

Any thoughts?

[mikey_1962]

1. Looks like things are getting ugly in Iraq....

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/30E895C5-79E1-4A46-B1A2-15F6C8A0E6B4.htm

[bemildred]

2. Sure do. To answer your question, you never know.

American firepower is pretty awesome.
I would be surprised it they expose themselves to it
deliberately when the present tactics are working so
well. It doesn't appear to me that they need to do
a Tet.

[chelsea0011]

3. Why? Are we celebrating the anniversity of Tet also?

[Bandit]

4. Huge difference here

In Vietnam we were engaged against the third largest army in the world. They were a conventional force to be reckoned with. They received aid from China and USSR and that aid was quite modern. They also had triple canopy jungle to protect them from our air superiority. In Iraq all we are dealing with is civilians trying to make-do with little to none equipment and supplies and no known support. I suspect the guerrilla tactics to continue for as long as the US and Israel are involved there.

[Goldmund]

5. "In Vietnam we were engaged against the third largest army in the world. "

By what metric?

And who are the first two?

[Bandit]

6. By numbers of troops ~ The NVA was several million strong

The Chinese Army at that time was nowhere near the size as the NVA. The USSR and USA were the number one and two in that order. Remember this was 1968.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

8. But we're talking about irregulars in Tet.

And the US/RVN forces did wipe out the irregular forces involved in Tet '68, but it was a huge propaganda victory for the Communists, since that's when public opinion really started to shift against the war. The US government had been saying "We're winning, just wait a bit longer," and the guerrillas showed that they weren't finished.

All I'm saying is the bombings could abate, a false sense of security would come over everyone and then BAM - actual military operations by former troops/guerrillas. Even though our troops would be able to take them out with a little effort, it would still look REALLY bad for the US.

[madrchsod]

7. north Vietnam and the southern

Viet Cong lost an est.444,000 in combat .huge losses compared to the 58,000 combat dead the USA suffered. the Vietnamese had enough combat strength left to win the war. i couldn't`t find exact figures on nv and the vc troop numbers,they are probably unknown

[karabekian]

9. nothing like tet offensive

bombing a bunch of Iraqi citizens is nothing like the tet offensive. One is senseless murder to kill the citizens of the country and intimidate them, the other was a planned military attack on US troops.