Vietnam and Iraq: more similarities than the Bushies know
Iraq through the prism of Vietnam
COMMENTARY | March 08, 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.
By William E. Odom
diane@hudson.org
The Vietnam War experience can’t tell us anything about the war in Iraq – or so it is said. If you believe that, try 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.
Phase One in Vietnam lasted from 1961 until the Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution in August 1964, authorizing deployment of large U.S. combat forces in South Vietnam. It began with hesitation and a gross misreading of American strategic interests. It concluded with the U.S. use of phony intelligence that made it seem that North Vietnamese patrol boats had attacked U.S. ships in the Tonkin Gulf without provocation.
President Kennedy was ambivalent about deeper involvement, but some of his aides believed that a North Vietnamese takeover of the south would bring Sino-Soviet dominion over all of Southeast Asia. They paid little attention to the emerging Sino-Soviet split, which the Intelligence Community was reporting in the early 1960s.
Accordingly, the “containment of China” became their goal, their rationale for U.S. strategic purpose – that is, not allowing the Soviet Bloc to expand in this region. Was it really in the American interest to “contain China” in Vietnam? By 1965, Soviet leaders were also pursuing the containment of China, in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. Did it, then, make sense for the United States to commit large military forces to the pursuit of Soviet objectives in Southeast Asia? Obviously not; the White House’s strategic rationale had no grounding in reality.
(There's more here.)
COMMENTARY | March 08, 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.
By William E. Odom
diane@hudson.org
The Vietnam War experience can’t tell us anything about the war in Iraq – or so it is said. If you believe that, try 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.
Phase One in Vietnam lasted from 1961 until the Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution in August 1964, authorizing deployment of large U.S. combat forces in South Vietnam. It began with hesitation and a gross misreading of American strategic interests. It concluded with the U.S. use of phony intelligence that made it seem that North Vietnamese patrol boats had attacked U.S. ships in the Tonkin Gulf without provocation.
President Kennedy was ambivalent about deeper involvement, but some of his aides believed that a North Vietnamese takeover of the south would bring Sino-Soviet dominion over all of Southeast Asia. They paid little attention to the emerging Sino-Soviet split, which the Intelligence Community was reporting in the early 1960s.
Accordingly, the “containment of China” became their goal, their rationale for U.S. strategic purpose – that is, not allowing the Soviet Bloc to expand in this region. Was it really in the American interest to “contain China” in Vietnam? By 1965, Soviet leaders were also pursuing the containment of China, in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. Did it, then, make sense for the United States to commit large military forces to the pursuit of Soviet objectives in Southeast Asia? Obviously not; the White House’s strategic rationale had no grounding in reality.
(There's more here.)
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