Is Iraq another Vietnam?
The veteran Democratic Senator, Edward Kennedy, has described Iraq as George Bush's Vietnam - the long war that ended in humiliating retreat for the United States in 1975.
How justified is the comparison?
There are obvious differences.
The Vietnam war was fought over 14 years and on a far bigger scale. At its peak, more than half a million American soldiers were deployed there, compared with about a quarter of that number in Iraq.
Nearly 60,000 died in Vietnam, together with perhaps 40 times as many Vietnamese.
Looking at America's allies, the most obvious difference was the absence of Britain, its primary partner in Iraq. In the 1960s, the British government resisted Washington's pressure to send troops to Vietnam.
South Korea fought alongside the United States, together with smaller contingents from Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines and Thailand.
Ruthless
To help with the Iraqi aftermath, the US has assembled a longer list of allies on the ground, mostly European. But in military terms, only the British contribution is significant.
The US used more ruthless methods in Vietnam - including large-scale bombing, often with incendiary napalm, and the destruction of whole villages suspected of harbouring Vietcong guerrillas.
Such tactics are even harder to justify now. The Americans have far more accurate weapons available.
But they are often irrelevant to the task at hand.
Essentially, the same dilemma faces the Americans in Iraq - how to separate the fighters from bystanders, this time in run-down towns and cities rather than tropical jungle.
A purely military solution was and is impossible. But then, as now, a superpower staked its prestige on victory, so the question became: how to get out?
Vietnam ruined the presidency of Lyndon Johnson. His successor, Richard Nixon, negotiated a peace deal which in fact meant an American withdrawal and the takeover of South Vietnam by the communist North.
Washington's local political instrument, the corrupt South Vietnamese military government, was discredited and collapsed.
In Iraq, the Americans have appointed a Governing Council whose legitimacy is disputed. The difference, they hope, will be the involvement of the United Nations and a handover to a more representative government.
Ideological justification
One striking similarity is Washington's declaration of an ideological, even altruistic motive.
In Vietnam, it was resistance to the spread of communism: the theory was that if it was not stopped there, the rest of south-east Asia would fall like a row of dominos.
The reasons for the invasion of Iraq are more muddled, but the Bush administration has often sought to present it as part of a war against Islamic terrorism - as well as an effort to establish Iraq as a beacon of western-style democracy in the Middle East.
In both cases, the United States said it was defending freedom: but its involvement in Vietnam stimulated a national resistance struggle and a similar phenomenon may be emerging in Iraq.
So far, nothing like the mass protest movement against the Vietnam war has emerged in the US.
But there is another way in which the shadow of Vietnam hangs over President Bush.
His opponent in the November presidential election will be John Kerry, who was decorated for bravery in the Vietnam war - but later campaigned against it.
Mr Bush avoided being drafted to serve in Vietnam.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asi...ic/3608473.stm
The veteran Democratic Senator, Edward Kennedy, has described Iraq as George Bush's Vietnam - the long war that ended in humiliating retreat for the United States in 1975.
How justified is the comparison?
There are obvious differences.
The Vietnam war was fought over 14 years and on a far bigger scale. At its peak, more than half a million American soldiers were deployed there, compared with about a quarter of that number in Iraq.
Nearly 60,000 died in Vietnam, together with perhaps 40 times as many Vietnamese.
Looking at America's allies, the most obvious difference was the absence of Britain, its primary partner in Iraq. In the 1960s, the British government resisted Washington's pressure to send troops to Vietnam.
South Korea fought alongside the United States, together with smaller contingents from Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines and Thailand.
Ruthless
To help with the Iraqi aftermath, the US has assembled a longer list of allies on the ground, mostly European. But in military terms, only the British contribution is significant.
The US used more ruthless methods in Vietnam - including large-scale bombing, often with incendiary napalm, and the destruction of whole villages suspected of harbouring Vietcong guerrillas.
Such tactics are even harder to justify now. The Americans have far more accurate weapons available.
But they are often irrelevant to the task at hand.
Essentially, the same dilemma faces the Americans in Iraq - how to separate the fighters from bystanders, this time in run-down towns and cities rather than tropical jungle.
A purely military solution was and is impossible. But then, as now, a superpower staked its prestige on victory, so the question became: how to get out?
Vietnam ruined the presidency of Lyndon Johnson. His successor, Richard Nixon, negotiated a peace deal which in fact meant an American withdrawal and the takeover of South Vietnam by the communist North.
Washington's local political instrument, the corrupt South Vietnamese military government, was discredited and collapsed.
In Iraq, the Americans have appointed a Governing Council whose legitimacy is disputed. The difference, they hope, will be the involvement of the United Nations and a handover to a more representative government.
Ideological justification
One striking similarity is Washington's declaration of an ideological, even altruistic motive.
In Vietnam, it was resistance to the spread of communism: the theory was that if it was not stopped there, the rest of south-east Asia would fall like a row of dominos.
The reasons for the invasion of Iraq are more muddled, but the Bush administration has often sought to present it as part of a war against Islamic terrorism - as well as an effort to establish Iraq as a beacon of western-style democracy in the Middle East.
In both cases, the United States said it was defending freedom: but its involvement in Vietnam stimulated a national resistance struggle and a similar phenomenon may be emerging in Iraq.
So far, nothing like the mass protest movement against the Vietnam war has emerged in the US.
But there is another way in which the shadow of Vietnam hangs over President Bush.
His opponent in the November presidential election will be John Kerry, who was decorated for bravery in the Vietnam war - but later campaigned against it.
Mr Bush avoided being drafted to serve in Vietnam.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asi...ic/3608473.stm
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