General William Odom: "Iraq Through the Prism of Vietnam"

[WilliamPitt]

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030906P.shtml

Iraq Through the Prism of Vietnam
By William E. Odom
Nieman Watchdog

Wednesday 08 March 2006

Those who say Iraq is nothing like Vietnam have another guess coming, says retired Gen. William Odom. He lists striking similarities and asserts that only after it pulls out of Iraq can the U.S. hope for international support to deal with anti-Western forces.

The Vietnam War experience can't tell us anything about the war in Iraq - or so it is said. If you believe that, trying looking through this lens, and you may change your mind.

The Vietnam War had three phases. The War in Iraq has already completed an analogous first phase, is approaching the end of the second phase, and shows signs of entering the third.

(snip)

Phase One in Iraq, the run-up to the invasion, looks remarkably similar. Broodings about the "necessity" to overthrow Saddam's regime were heard earlier, but signs of action appeared in January 2002, when President Bush proclaimed his "axis of evil" thesis about Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, countries he accused of acquiring "weapons of mass destruction" and supporting terrorists against the United States. This became the cornerstone of his rationale for invading Iraq, and it was no less ill-conceived than the strategic purpose for President Johnson's war in Vietnam. It better served the interests of Iran and Osama bin Laden.

Iran had serious scores to settle with Iraq. In 1980, Saddam Hussein launched a bloody war that dragged on until 1988 without a decisive end. That President Bush would destroy Saddam's regime, saving Iran the trouble, was probably beyond its clerics' wildest dreams.

(snip)

Will Phase Three in Iraq end with helicopters flying out of the "green zone" in Baghdad? It all sounds so familiar.

The difference lies in the consequences. Vietnam did not have the devastating effects on U.S. power that Iraq is already having. On this point, those who deny the Vietnam-Iraq analogy are probably right. They are wrong, however, in believing that "staying the course" will have any result other than making the damage to U.S. power far greater than changing course and withdrawing sooner in as orderly a fashion as possible.

But even in its differences, Vietnam can be instructive about Iraq. Once the U.S. position in Vietnam collapsed, Washington was free to reverse the negative trends it faced in NATO and U.S.-Soviet military balance, in the world economy, in its international image, and in other areas. Only by getting out of Iraq can the United States possibly gain sufficient international support to design a new strategy for limiting the burgeoning growth of anti-Western forces it has unleashed in the Middle East and Southwest Asia.

...more...

[WilliamPitt]

1. Bunt

[WilliamPitt]

2. El Bunto

[KoKo]

3. Sheesh...did a couple of us kick this great read earlier today?

I must be totally out of it...or "reposting" is what one needs to do these days as posts scroll by at a seconds pace.