I think Iraq qill be a humbling experience for the U.S.

[zeek]

Right now many Americans, particularly on the right, think we are unstopable and invincible. This attitude is similar to the prevailing attitude of the late 50s and 60s which led to ultimate failure in vietnam.

Although Vietnam was a totally different war, I think the two are similar in that regard. I think we will eventually leave Iraq with a bloody nose and a realization that while we are the most powerful country in the world we are not invincible.

I think we will be humbled, much like we were after Vietnam. This will result in a loss of diplomatic influence worldwide, a long lasting recession and a general pecimism amongst the American public.

Last time it took us about 9 years after we left in 1974 to start to start to recover from the "vietnam syndrome", and 17 years to fully recover. This time it may take longer because with the cold war raging we had to recover from vietnam, we had no other choice. This time, as the worlds only superpower it will be different.

Comments, differences of opinion or flames welcome :-)

[phantom power]

1. I'm disappointed at how quickly we tossed aside the lessons of

Viet Nam. Of course, many people never did accept those lessons, and still think we should have stuck it out.

Really, it blows my mind. Most of the people who lived thru Viet Nam are still alive. But here we are, doing it all over again. Maybe even worse.

[datasuspect]

it is worse

at least during the vietnam era, you had the sorta credible sham of the domino theory and protecting democracy from communism.

this time around, the sham is such a deliberate lie that it is sickening. whenever i hear that cocksucker bush talk about "freedom" and "democracy" and how we are GIVING them this, i want to puke.

this war was made on the slimmest and silliest of pretexts and i have to maintain that only an idiot or a fully deluded person would support this exercise in venality and corporate rape of a weaker nation.

[Stinky The Clown]

11. Not only are those who lived through Vietnam alive ... they're in charge!

And, sadly, the ones in charge are the ones who failed to learn the lesson.

I was one of those who, at the time, thought Vietnam was a winnable war. I was one who, at the time, saw John O'Neill's point as right and was not pleased with Kerry's views ......... at the time.

But one's views mature as one ages. Or at least they should.

[lachattefolle]

18. They may be in charge but most of them don't know one damn thing

about war, except how to dodge one. Assholes.

[bryant69]

2. You could be right

Although the right isn't given much to introspection. I mean Vietnam was kind of a nice set up for them because Kennedy and Johnson were both Democrats, and so they could slam us both coming and going. They don't have that option now.

I also suspect that they will continue to blame failures in Iraq not on their failed strategies but on us knowing and commenting about said failures.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[DinahMoeHum]

4. But now the shoe is on the other foot.

:evilfrown:

[BurtWorm]

3. The problem with Iraq is that it is being conducted by crusaders

who think they can do no wrong, even when all they do is wrong. They are leading a class of Americans who cannot grasp the reality of the Pandora's box they've opened and left open in Iraq (and at home and elsewhere).

[Truman01]

5. I think as a group we so hate * that we want Iraq to

be a failure. Is that so? How would we fix Iraq now? We can't go back and not invade, we did that already. What should we do now? Should we let Saddam loose and say we are sorry, should we pull out and let them have their civil war, or continue doing what we are doing?

It's easy for us to poke holes in *'s silliness, but what would we do now if we were in charge?

Iraq is not as bad as Viet Nam, we were losing hundreds of soldiers a week with little or no progress. We may end up with the same result here in that when we leave the political situation will end up in the same equalibrium that it was headed to anyway.

I'm just courious, after we are done bitching about * (and I agree with that), what do we do about Iraq? That is one thing I didn't get from JK. He didn't seem to have any different opinions about Iraq except that he wanted to bring in more alies. The question is, what then?

What do you guys think?

TC

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

8. Still using that? You already know it doesn't work. Try a newer brand.

Maybe one of these:

[Truman01]

15. It's an honest question, if you want to answer it fine, if not

make fun all you want. If we intend to be a party of leadership we have to have plans not just flames. I think it was one of the weaknesses of our campaign this time, we had no alternatives, just Repuke lite.

TC

[phantom power]

9. I believe we've lost the opportunity to make it work.

We had a narrow window of time to demonstrate that we weren't just another occupying army. That window is long gone.

Personally, I'm unconvinced that that this could have ever worked, even if we played it perfectly. We invaded their country, and killed thousands of their country-men, just during the first few days. Can you imagine what that feels like?

So, what do we do? We leave. All the lives spent are wasted. All the money, all the resources, all the international political relations. Waste.

So yes, I'm feeling a bit bitchy about that collosal waste.

[Kingshakabobo]

19. We blew our narrow window on purpose. It wasn't an

accident. In case everyone hasn't read this Harper's article here it is. Read it. It goes a long way to explain why they hate us and it ain't for our freedoms. The article tells how the neo-cons tried to steal the country and sell it off to the highest bidder. Twenty pages and well worth it.

http://www.harpers.org/BaghdadYearZero.html

[DrWeird]

17. Hey, I got some news for you. Iraq IS a failure.

We knew it would before it even started. Poppy and Cheney knew it would be twelve years ago. The only question is, how long will it take for the people who support the mess to pull their heads out of their asses?

[Truman01]

20. I'm not arguing that, I want to know what WE think should be

done about it. Like I said, we need to have a plan.....

[Nordic]

22. Declare victory and leave

Pay the bill. We broke it, after all.

We met our goals: Disarm Saddam (yeah right, he was already "disarmed") and remove him from power.

Done.

Buh-bye. Let the rest of the world figure it out, along with us.

If they're gonna have a civil war, there's not a whole lot we can do to stop it. Remember Yugoslavia? We had to let the country break up. Do we want to be Iraq's Tito? No.

Let it break up. Why not? Better yet, have the Muslim countries surrounding there oversee the breakup.

[NickB79]

23. There is nothing that can be done

Whether we like it or not, Iraq WILL devolve into an Islamic theocracy within the next decade. The free elections we are so intent on holding will only speed up this process, as ironic as that sounds. With 60% of the population as devout Shiite Muslims aligned with Iran, there is no way the country can remain secular once elections begin. The only thing that could be done by the US to retain any semblence of normalcy in Iraq would be to install a puppet "president" who is pro-secular, supply him with massive amounts of weapons and possibly US troops to supplement his own, and use brute force to put down any uprisings and rebellions by the Shiites. Hmmm, wait, that sounds really familiar, like we tried this before with some other Iraqi guy, I think back in the 70's and 80's? It also sounds like our failed attempt in Vietnam.

I know it's really hard to get over the idea that there is nothing left we can do, because it is such a helpless feeling. But, like it or not, that is the direction this Titanic is going, and nothing can steer her away from that iceberg.

[K-W]

6. How many times do we need to be humbled before we learn?

People who lived through vietnam are still alive for goodness sake.

[DeaconBlues]

7. The right was in no way humbled by Vietnam

They just blamed the loss on the protesters or politicians who forced us to "fight with one hand behind our back" (evidently a half million soldiers and more bomb tonnage than was dropped in WWII wasn't enough for them). They will have similar rationalizations when we lose in Iraq. Count on it.

[phantom power]

10. Surely as the sun rises. Heck, they've already started.

"support the troops!" "Aid and comfort to the enemy!"

[spanone]

14. You are right, take assholes like John O'neill

This prick is in total denial that ANY atrocities occurred in Vietnam. There will always be warmongers with no humbleness nor introspection.

[donkeyotay]

16. The right is all blame and no accountability

"They will have similar rationalizations when we lose in Iraq. Count on it."

That is 100% correct. The failing economy is not their fault. The failing culture is not their fault. The failed free press is not their fault. The failed election integrity is not their fault. Our failed security is not their fault. And, for heavens sake, this war is not their fault, and losing it will not be their fault.

The Republicans are spotless. They are guided by the hand of God.

[IrateCitizen]

12. It won't be like after Vietnam -- it's the beginning of the decline.

Prior to Vietnam, the US was in excellent shape, economically. If LBJ had refused to allow us to be sucked into that conflict and instead concentrated on domestic matters, I honestly think he would have gone down as one of the top 5 presidents in history. But as it was, he tried to do "guns and butter", which was a miserable failure on all fronts. Vietnam undermined his political capital, and it also crippled us financially to the point that the country was literally hemmoraging money. This is what led to Nixon abolishing the Bretton-Woods system (under which currency exchange rates were fixed) and adopting floating exchange rates.

While this was good at "creating wealth" in the short-term, it helped to complete the transformation of the United States from a production economy to a finance economy. This transformation was effectively completed with the election of Ronald Reagan, and his dismissal of much of the overarching ideology of the New Deal and its aftermath in favor of the lasseiz-faire approach of market fundamentalism. In this sense, we have been living under the shadow of Reagan for the past 24 years, including during the Clinton years.

The end result has been a steady erosion in the living standards of much of the middle class and working class, while the investment class has seen its wealth multiply at an obscene rate. The gap between the haves and the have-nots has skyrocketed over this period, and it shows no signs of abating.

But all of this has come at a cost. In order to keep its economy afloat, the US has been required to hog a majority of the world's investment capital for itself. This has meant that large amounts of money that could be used for stimulating economic growth throughout the non-industrialized world has instead been appropriated to sustain rampant consumerism and maintain a facade of economic hegemony for the United States. Given this, it's no wonder that people throughout the world are beginning to seethe at the United States for its foreign policy while they simultaneously long for the possibility of "striking it rich" that they believe the United States offers.

Add into this situation an overstretched military subject to an increasingly bellicose foreign policy that is only pissing off the rest of the world. Ties with other industrialized nations, while still friendly in official reports, have largely been torn to tatters in reality. The two biggest nations in the EU -- France and Germany -- have indicated that they want no part of our misadventurism in the Middle East. Britain has cast its lot with the US, hoping that this Anglo alliance can help improve its position within the EU, but this effort will most likely be as doomed as the US gets dragged down in Iraq.

As for the rest of the world, it now sees that the mask of "multilateralism" preached by previous administrations has been completely ripped off, showing US policy for what it truly is -- highly unilateral, unconcerned with global opinion, and willing to pursue wholly selfish interests irregardless of the expense to others. Despite the rhetoric expressed by John Kerry of going back to the foreign policy of the Clinton years, such a move is an impossibility, because it would amount only to trying to put the mask back on this hideous visage of US foreign policy after the rest of the world has seen its reality in plain view, and that visage has been burned into their memory.

Kevin Phillips, in his book, Wealth and Democracy, highlights the cycle that all relatively modern empires have followed, from the Spanish Empire to the Dutch Trading Empire and the British Empire. They are as follows:
1. A rise in manufacturing and trade that produces a large and vibrant middle class.
2. An expansion of area and influence that accompanies this manufacturing and trade.
3. The rise of speculative finance, which begins the hollowing out of the manufacturing base and diminishes the middle class
4. The growth of a wealth gap between the haves and have-nots, along with the continued and steady erosion of the middle class
5. Involvement in a protracted war, which overstretches the military and the economy
6. The decline of the empire, leaving a diminished nation but one with a more egalitarian spirit, domestically.

I'll leave it to you to guess which phase we're in right now....

[borlis]

13. I agree I think Iraq will be a humbling experience, however

I don't think "humbling" is a word * knows. Because the media isn't allowed at Dover when they bring the caskets back and mainstream Americans don't see the kind of pictures we see here,I fear that there is no real end in sight. * likes to win at any cost. His arrogance will forbid him to see that he has made any mistakes. We saw this previously in an interview.

[Nordic]

21. we weren't humbled enough in Vietnam

and these are some of the same Nixonian assholes that thought we could "pave over" north vietnam if we only had the political will.

Rumsfeld, Cheney, all Nixonites.

Sadly, this country is like a 13 year old bully that needs to seriously get its ass kicked before it will grow up.

I wish it wasn't true, but it is.