Vietnam and Iraq: A Tale Of Two Wars.

[elperromagico]

Comparisons between Vietnam and Iraq are, in many ways, inevitable. Vietnam was escalated on the basis of an event that likely never happened; Iraq was begun on the basis of information that has since been proven false. Both wars were promoted by their supporters as extensions of wider wars; Vietnam was an extension of the Cold War and Iraq is, to paraphrase George Bush, a central front in the war on terrorism. American casualties in Vietnam began at a trickle and quickly grew to astronomical proportions; newspapers of late have been filled with stories of the mass killing of American soldiers in Iraq.

In the Vietnam era leaders like Johnson and McNamara assured the public that the North Vietnamese were being held back and the tide was turning; in the Iraq era leaders like Bush and Rumsfeld assure the public that freedom is on the march and that the insurgency is in its last throes. In the end, the American people turned against Vietnam. In the same way, the American people are now turning against Iraq. Indeed, the approval ratings for Bush and his prosecution of the war in Iraq are a virtual match for LBJ’s ratings in 1968.

Here, the similarities must necessarily end, for the history of the Iraq war has yet to be finished. It’s possible, though, that we may predict how the war in Iraq will go by observing the history of the Vietnam war.

First, I must state some personal opinions. I am not convinced that the American people are, in the main, either vehemently anti-war or vehemently pro-war. They believe in the necessity of some wars and when America embarks on a war, they are determined to support the effort. They do not lack the perception, however, to recognize when America is losing a war.

Still, they are reluctant to admit that America has lost a war.

The events of 1968, the year when opposition to Vietnam hit a fever pitch, bear this out. Despite the high opposition to the war, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans adopted a position favoring an immediate withdrawal of American troops. Indeed, the hotly contested Democratic platform of that year states that the Democratic Party “reject{s} as unacceptable a unilateral withdrawal of our forces which would allow” North Vietnamese “aggression and subversion to succeed.” The Republican platform makes vague references to “a program for peace” and “de-Americanization of the war, both military and civilian.”

Those are quotes worthy of a George W. Bush speech.

With these moderate platforms, the election of 1968 became a referendum not on whether or not the war should end but rather on how it should end. With 13% of the electorate voting for the ultra-conservative George Wallace, some 99% of the nation’s electorate voted for a candidate who favored continued American involvement in Vietnam.

Nixon, with his party’s vague proposals for Vietnam, won that election by one of the narrowest pluralities in American history. The Republican Party gained five seats in the Senate and in the House. What followed was Nixon’s secret plan for peace with honor in Vietnam: six more years of American involvement in Southeast Asia. The war expanded to Cambodia and Laos. “De-Americanization,” now re-dubbed “Vietnamization,” resulted in a further loss of some 20,000 American dead and some 120,000 American wounded.

The Democratic war became the Republican war.

And Nixon beat a solidly anti-war Democrat, in a landslide, in 1972. Three years later, American troops finally left Vietnam and in short order the country fell completely to the North Vietnamese.

Is this how Iraq will turn out? Will our elections be debates over how to fight the war rather than how to end it? In 2004, all but two of the nine Democratic candidates for President (if memory serves) favored continued involvement in Iraq. Of Kerry, Edwards, Dean, and Clark, the four frontrunners in the race for the Dem nomination, not one favored an immediate withdrawal. I see no reason to believe the group of candidates in 2008 will be any different. The candidates whose names I hear bandied about, with the exception of Kucinich and perhaps a couple of others, have never come out in favor of immediate withdrawal.

Take all this with a grain of salt if you like. Dismiss it as pessimism if you choose. I see very little in history to contradict my view.

The American people are willing to admit that we’re losing in Iraq. When you ask them to admit that we’ve lost in Iraq, they’ll be far more reluctant.

[FloridaPat]

1. The 1972 Democratic party was a mess. The guy nominated

for VP was found to have seen a psychologist, so they got someone else. McGovern seemed like an idiot. This was Watergate at it's height. As I remember it, and it's been a long while, no one cared except for the guys getting drafted. The anti-war movement got bigger and bigger to the point everyone else seemed to care. I remember seeing the war news every night on TV. I was in college at the end of the 60's Lot's of anti-war stuff going on. One could almost make a case that rock & roll and folk singers led the way in raising the consciousness of the 20-somethings.

I also think this was the first time a large group of people started noticing the government was lying. And we still see them

[bemildred]

3. Kerry in 2004 reminded me a lot of McGovern in 1972.

The party preferred letting them lose to empowering the grass-roots. Same deal with Humphrey in 1968. That was when it started to dawn on me that the national parties are not about winning so much as staying in control. That's why I like Dean, he is at least talking about changing that, giving the people a voice and fighting for every seat.

[elperromagico]

4. Humphrey didn't even win in the primaries,

the last major party nominee to claim such a dubious honor.

[bballny]

2. I loved McGovern

Unfotunately Eagleton had eletric shock treatments for depression and the U.S. will give the President great leeway. I went to the march on Wash in Nov. 1969 anf it was really something. As long as no one is getting drafted there will not be great outrage. What will sink Bush is the price of gas.

[eridani]

5. People keep forgetting one thing about 1972

Namely, that the average American's earning capacity peaked in 1973 and has been going downhill ever since, with only a brief uptick in the 90s that nonetheless didn't come close to making up lost ground.

McGovern didn't have economics to run on. Kerry did, but his handlers wouldn't let him.