Vietnamization; Iraqization (Part I)
Wars tend to be hard on Presidents as well as on nations. Lincoln barely survived the Civil War before he was assassinated. Wilson’s health permanently deteriorated in the immediate aftermath of WWI, when he undertook a grueling speaking tour in a vain attempt to rally the country around support for the League of Nations. FDR died shortly before WWII ended, leaving the unseasoned Harry Truman to make vital decisions at its conclusion.
The Vietnam War was a bit different; no executive died (although my guess is that it may have hastened the death of Johnson, who already had a bad heart). But there’s little doubt that it prematurely ended the political career of Johnson, who’d been elected in a huge landslide in 1964 but declined to run in 1968. And of course Richard Nixon, the proximate cause of whose political demise was Watergate rather than Vietnam, had to leave office before the war was over, leaving the unelected Gerald Ford to preside inneffectually over Congress’s final financial abandonment of the South Vietnamese.
President Bush is still with us, despite the war (and those who wish he’d drop dead). This time, the casualty was Republican control of Congress. The Iraq War will have been started by a Republican executive paired with a Republican Congress, and will now be continued by a Republican President (at least for now) and a Democratic Congress.
Many people who have only a passing acquaintance with the history of the Vietnam War fail to realize that the first phase, escalation of American combat forces in the country, was engineered by two Democrat Presidents (Kennedy but then much more importantly Johnson) and a strongly Democratic Congress. The second part–Vietnamization, or the drawing down of US combat forces, ceding the actual fighting to the South Vietnamese–was undertaken by a Republican executive, Nixon, working with a profoundly Democratic Congress. The third stage, occurring when there were no more US combat troops in Vietnam, was presided over by a weak and unelected Republican President and a Democratic Congress, although it was the Democratic Congress that was the main player in the cutoff of funding to the South Vietnamese, sealing their fate; President Ford was active in that decision mainly by his failure to fight it, or to suggest alternatives. We can say that the Vietnam War was a bipartisan affair, but Democrats had the leading role, especially in stages one and three.
Why am I bringing this up now? We seem to be facing a decision somewhat similar to that faced by Nixon on his election: how to deal with a war that isn’t going as anyone would have hoped. This commission or that commission or the other commission is studying the problem: realpolitik or not? more troops or fewer? big, long, or home?
Victor Davis Hanson, an expert on military history, has recently written a column in which he weighs current suggestions for Iraq policy, especially troop increases. He says–and I agree–that it’s the second stage of the Vietnam War our present involvement should try to resemble (only we need to accomplish it more effectively, of course): that of Vietnamization.
In contrast to Vietnam, the US political parties involved in the Iraq War are somewhat reversed. The first stage of the Iraq War (if this election can be said to mark the end of the first stage, which I believe it does) was as much a Republication endeavor as the first stage of Vietnam was a Democratic one: Republican President, Republican Congress. And now, although the change of party power is different than it was in 1968 (change of legislature rather than executive) the Democrats get a chance to try their luck at the second stage, Iraqization, just as the Republican Nixon did back in early 1969 when he introduced Vietnamization. It can either be done slowly and carefully, or quickly and recklessly.
As with all parallels to Vietnam, this one is far from an exact comparison. For one thing, President Bush and the Defense Department have been trying for years to Iraqicize the conflict, although without enough success. Another difference is that the American presence in Iraq has never been close to what it was in Vietnam in terms of numbers or casualties. We deposed Saddam’s regime at the outset of the war, and in record time; we never achieved that goal in Vietnam with the North Vietnamese (in fact, it doesn’t really seem to have been one of our goals there). In Iraq, we’re facing a conflict that’s less clear geographically (although Vietnam was far from clearly demarcated), and involves far more sides, including ancient religious clashes as well as modern-day jockeying for secular power, and an enemy that’s even more brutal than the North Vietnamese were (and that’s saying something).
Vietnam became a war in which both Democrats and Republicans had a chance to make decisions. Peggy Noonan writes, reflecting on the change represented in the recent midterm election:
We are in a 30-year war. It is no good for it to be led by, identified with, one party. It is no good for half the nation to feel estranged from its government’s decisions. It’s no good for us to be broken up more than a nation normally would be. And straight down the middle is a bad break, the kind that snaps.
“Vietnamization” was a word that became a sort of joke to many liberals and those on the Left, representing the shoring up of a corrupt regime in South Vietnam, the secret bombings of Cambodia (and thus, more deception to the American people), and the final retreat and abandonment of the country. In Part II, I plan to take up a discussion of what Vietnamization actually was, and how it might relate to the decisions we face today.
From the perspective of someone who remembers the ’60’s and was in the Marines when Nixon was president, I believe his resignation was tied to the fact that he was the ritual sacrifice for all of the Executive Office malfeasance and misfeasance of the previous 10, 15 years. IOW, he too was a casulty of the War.
You forgot to mention Churchill, who was voted out right after WW2 in Europe ended. That’s why Clement Atlee represented the UK at Potsdam!
To successfully “Iraqify”, understanding that we have abandoned the “democratic project”, means that the government has to have a monopoly on power, and a monopoly of violence. That means at minimum that the Iraqi militias have to be disbanded. Anyone up for that?
The Vietnam War was a decade old before the public began turning against it. The Iraq War is barely 3 years old and already most people have begun to see the reality behind the happy talk emenating from the White House.
I know you want a 30-year war, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
Steve,
I think “monopoly” goes a bit too far. The government has to have the overwhelming power available to it. Look at how German terrorists attacked U.S. peacekeepers after WWII. No one entity had a monopoly on power and violence, yet Germany became a democratic state.
I’m just too young to remember some things about Vietnam. During that conflict, was it clear – to the U.S. population at large – that Chinese and Soviets were supplying the N. Vietnamese? I ask because it is now unclear, to the population at large, that the Iranians and Syrians are supplying and encouraging the Iraqi instablity. Iran is trying to take over Iraq – at least in the sense of Iraq becoming Iran’s satellite nation – yet few of the American poohbahs or American populace seem to recognize it.
The insider info is no longer insider. People back in Vietnam could give excuses that they did not have access to military intel and expertise, so they were ‘ignorant’. But you can’t give that excuse here and now in the 21st century, not with Colonels, Generals, intel specialists, and etc all over the blogosphere crunching the data into digestible information.
The only excuse for ignorance now is laziness and intellectual dumbocracy.
Noonan wrote about the global WoT in general, not Iraq specifically. But Loyal Achates is correct in one sense. If the donks have their way, we’ll surrender the fight long before victory is assured. The shameful retreat of the donks left millions to die in Vietnam. they will do the same in Iraq unless we stop them.
The two wars are very different and the constant harking back seems pointless to most non-us people. Try to deal with the reality of the mess in iraq rather than the long bitterness vietnam left in the us body politic. Like it or not it is now time to start dealing with people rather than seeing which side of a simplistic line of good and evil they fall on an treating them accordingly.
Look at how German terrorists attacked U.S. peacekeepers after WWII.
It was my understanding that the “German terrorists” aka “Werewolves” were largely non-existent and not a problem. What was a problem in Germany after the war was that there were probably in the neighborhood of 20 million displaced persons, including German expellees, and including millions of former slave laborers, and some of these formed gangs. I don’t think you can make any comparison with the postwar bloodshed in Germany – such as it was – and what’s going down in Iraq. Nor do I think you can argue that the Occupation Forces of the Four Powers would ever have tolerated a “German militia.” Maybe Patton would have, but look what happened to him.
As far as known linkages: we knew that China was fighting the US in Korea, and we knew in 1965 and after that China (and possibly the USSR) were supporting the North Vietnamese. But we didn’t want to fight a “big” war in any case. So we fought a couple of small ones.
As to today, it’s obvious that Iran is working with the Shi’ites. That was one of the reasons I opposed the war initially: we’d be handing Iraq to Iran on a plate. There’s not much we can do about it now. I know everyone wants to drop bombs. That will work about as well as “Shock ‘n’ Awe” worked in Iraq.
Over the Last 6 years Kosovo has been an astounding success. Kosovo was ridiculed and maligned by Republicans from the start. Republicans accused the Kosovo Campaign of being a potential “vietnam”. Now looking back 6 years later we all can see Kosovo wasen’t what the gainsayers claimed.
The Iraq war has been a huge strategetic blunder for the USA. The surprising dismissal of Donald Rumsfeld has only proven corrupt Republican dealings in congress, the electoral college and the judiciary. Republicans have used the power given to them by the people to commit terrible abuses against humanity.
In the last few weeks it has become very apparent Republicans are not as moral as they claimed. The problem with electing people on outward claims of morality is that we have found out they were white washed tombs full of dead men’s bones. I
The Iraq campaign has been a big lie and terrible injustice against humanity. The problem with the west is that people don’t understand that Muslims don’t want to live in a democracy. When Muslims do have a democracy, such as palestine, it changes nothing.
America has made a terrible strategetic blunder in Iraq. By giving Iraqis over $20,000,000 to rebuild Iraq infrastructure America is actually getting more money into the hands of potential terrorist and terrorist. Many terrorist operate businesses, such as construction, trades, and service industrys. The money America is using to beef up the Iraqi econonmy is making it more possible for terrorist to come to America. Now instead of terrorist having to ride in cargo container with beans and rice they can fly first class with caviar.
Iraq has been a terrible failure, a war we all will be better off to soon forget. Kosovo on the other hand has been a success with little acknowledgement by the American press. We should be very thankful for our success in Kosovo and learn that America can succeed in police actions if done in coperation with many other nations. We can’t cut and run from NATO and the U.N.
And of course Richard Nixon, the proximate cause of whose political demise was Watergate rather than Vietnam, had to leave office before the war was over, leaving the unelected Gerald Ford to preside inneffectually over Congress’s final financial abandonment of the South Vietnamese.
It is like everything from the Kennedy assassination onwards was a total crapshoot for America. And it all turned up snake eyes.
Another reason why Hoover ignoring evidence and perhaps even destroying it in the Kennedy Assassination, is rather suspicous. If ever there was something the anti of serendipity, this was it. Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Gerald. Beginning to end. All crapped out.
President Bush is still with us, despite the war (and those who wish he’d drop dead).
While the Vietnam war was an example of anti-serendipity in action. Bush is the example of the counter, where luck got him in 2000 and etc.
There is one excuse that I left out in my above comment. Time. People may excuse themselves for lack of time, but not lack of resources or opportunity to get the goods. Not with youtube and blogs.
“We are in a thirty year war.”
Which war are we talking about? The War on Terror or the Iraq War? We don’t all agree that it is the same war. We have allies who support us on one but not the other.
If kungfu is talking about NATO in Afghanistan, he needs to somehow cover up the fact that NATO is useless in Afghanistan and has expressly ordered their soldiers not to obey orders to attack and not to operate at certain times, leaving the fighting to the Poles, the Canadians, the Australians, and the Americans.
I’m afraid that the comparison between Iraq and Vietnam has always eluded me, except perhaps for the press, which in both cases has been the 5th column. I have lived through both, and in both cases I have been embarrassed by the actions of my government. In Vietnam, the enemy was constantly re-supplied by another government. This is not really the case in Iraq, which is why the number of U.S. casualties is nearly 10 times lower.
The problem in Iraq is that the Bush Administration [apparently] truly believed that the war would be over after toppling Saddam. I have spoken to officials in the government who honestly believed that many Iraqi’s would come out and cheer for their freedom. They were correct, but disregarded those who had suddenly been put out of a job, notably the Ba’athists, who were virtually all Sunni, and most relatives (some quite distant) of Saddam. Saddam had about 15 months to plan the insurrection, and apparently he made good use of that time, planting enormous amounts of ordinance throughout the country.
The U. S. should have treated Iraq like a conquered country, but did not. When terrorists surged into Fallujah, we should have destroyed the city, giving the populace a week or so to evacuate. The Shi’ite henchman should have been killed long ago. UNTIL WE ARE SERIOUS ABOUT FIGHTING A WAR, WHY BOTHER?
Bowman speaks with the voice of a Jacksonian, Neo.
And I concur.
President Wilson was a Democrat and the war was ended inconclusively by an armistice. It was sold as the War to end all Wars. Wilson had a good propaganda machine, actually the first, with Freud’s nephew Edward Bernaise credited with being the father of modern advertising. No one remembers the occupation and starvation, a la like Oil for Food of Germany.
Many young men going off into Democrat FDR’s WW II felt they were finishing up their fathers failures. So too the Germans soldiers felt that war was the second part of the first(I guess they didn’t get Bernase’s message.) Supposedly the war in Europe started because of what happened to Poland, but that was forgotten and Poland was sold out to good old Uncle Joe the mass murder and soon nuclear weapons possessor. Nice ending, eh?
Truman inherited the strongest military in the history of the world, and the atomic bomb. And managed to project so much weakness as to have the Korean War, which again we didn’t win and it still underway.
You’ve mentioned Democrats Kennedy and Johnson.
I think you can say that Gulf War two was unfinished business from Gulf War One. The Syrians were certainly helpful after GW I, right? And of course so too were the Iranians.
Oddly, Ronald Reagan who had Iranians handing over hostages before he even was in office, didn’t have many problems, except from world leftist, even though he was always in the Soviets face. Things seemed to go wrong for him when he allowed his staff to go all soft on the Iranians. But as Osama said, “People go with the strong horse”.
It seems to me that the soldiers and Marines are willing to keep up the fight. The people who seem to be most in anguish are us back home, all safe, stuffed and warm. I think it is some guilt, really.
Anyways, there is some notion that all this is going away. Sort of expressed in a drooling old grandpa type way by Congressman Murtha that we can all be safe and warm and burning fuel and training for something, I don’t know what, in Okinawa. It isn’t going away.
“So we have to really start thinking differently about Iraq, and any thought about bringing in, for example, the UN, or any other group, anybody that comes in to Iraq right now is going to be an outsider, is going to be a target, is going to be accused of being involved with collaborators by either the Sunnis or the Shiites. They’re all going to be targeted. This country is really in bad shape.
“One solution, obviously, it seems to me, is to do exactly what’s happening. The two countries that seem to have some standing with the insurgency, Syria and Iran, maybe can do something because they have one thing in common with a lot of the people of Iraq: they’re standing up to America. And it is going to be very hard for us to accept the notion that we can’t broker anything. Which, I think, is much more likely than not. I think it’s gonna have to come from the other side, that is from the Iranian and Syrian side. Why should they want to see a Somalia on their borders? They don’t. And so that’s to me, the most important story of the day.”
— Seymour Hersh, interviewed on Democracy Now, Nov 21, 2006.
See also, Iraq and Syria restore ties:
“Iraq’s security is part of our security”
— Walid Moallem, the Syrian foreign minister
.
“Which war are we talking about? The War on Terror or the Iraq War?”
Bush stated this clear, and many times, that Iraq war is an episode of WoT. And changing allies in course of long war is not something new. One coalition is needed for one task, another for other. Churchill, known for his rabid anti-sovetism, made an alliance with Stalin. And disrupt it again after Germany was defeated. He answered to his critics: “If devil would invaded Germany, I could find some kind words for the devil”.
James, Kosovo was an astounding success?
“November 16, 2006 (SERBIANNA)
American troops deployed in Kosovo are ready to respond to violence that is nearly certain to erupt once the final status of this Serbian province is determined by the international Contact Group, assesses US commander of the Kosovo Force’s Multinational Task Force, Army Brig. Gen. Darren Owens. Owens told the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that, regardless of the outcome, one side will be unhappy and violence is likely.
“We’re approaching an important moment politically that will affect the future of Kosovo,” said Gen. James Jones, commander of U.S. European Command and NATO’s supreme allied commander. “We’ll have to see what that is and what the decision is, and we’ll also wait and see how the Kosovars accept the will of the international community.”
Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians are referred to as Kosovars.
“What we’re facing here are 180-degree opposing viewpoints,” Army Lt. Col. Steve Johnston from the task force’s intelligence section. “There’s calm, but tensions are rising about issues surrounding the final status.”
Yeah, great success.
See, it takes time. We’ve been in Kosovo over six years. Why is everyone so horrified that we’re still in Iraq?
Mrs. Neo, tear down that apple!
“It was my understanding that the “German terrorists” aka “Werewolves” were largely non-existent and not a problem.”
And yet again, Steve dismisses historical facts by simply declaring they didn’t exist.
Good luck convincing Al-Qaeda that they don’t exist. Somehow I don’t think Jedi mind tricks will work on them.
See, it takes time. We’ve been in Kosovo over six years. Why is everyone so horrified that we’re still in Iraq?
douglas | 11.22.06 – 6:48 am | #
Nobody has a problem with Americans bombing and killing Christians. It is Muslims that create outrage.
Here’s an example to test the veracity of the claim. Let’s say we blow up the Eifel tower and destroy Paris. How would the reaction differ from the reaction to Iraq?
“It was my understanding that the “German terrorists” aka “Werewolves” were largely non-existent and not a problem.”
And yet again, Steve dismisses historical facts by simply declaring they didn’t exist.
Actually, I am waiting for anyone to come forward with any evidence that Werewolf was substantially anything more than another Nazi pipe dream. Still waiting. It certainly bears no comparison to what’s happening in Iraq.
Steve:
I’m looking for the reference right now on the Werewolves. I seem to recall Bill Shirer reporting on the preseence of Werewolves in southern Germany (mostly Bavaria) for about one or two years after the end of WWII. My recollection was that I read this in his post-WWII book “End of The Berlin Diary”, but my son in San Francisco has “borrowed” my copy.
IIRC, they were active, but mostly – as in the case of Iraq – morphed into civilian criminals, working in the local Black Markets. An extremely raw winter in 1946-1947 and tottering prosperity took its toll on The Faithful.
A fictional account can be found in “The ODDESSA File”.
Regards…
I am as confused as most people about the current situation in Iraq. Due to a lot of unintended consequences, it sure has not ended up the way we, as a nation, anticipated. I wish I knew what we could and should do to correct the problem because, in the end, I think all the local populations, religious factions and political parties are going to lose and that is just too bad.
Now about Germany, post WWII, I spent three years and one month in Germany in the US Army during the 60’s. I was stationed in Northern Bavaria and I was lucky enough to get to know a lot of Germans and I heard a lot of their war stories. I read as much as I could about WWII and when we went in as a conquering army, we took away all weapons, military and civilian. I heard first hand reports, from US soldiers, about pulling wonderful hunting guns out of palaces and hunting lodges, laying them in the road and running tanks over them until they were rubble. We really did a good job of disarming Germany. That might have helped the current situation in Iraq.
After the war, the allies were an army of occupation and the Germans were put back to work running the local police, sanitation and railroads under our control. They had no illusions and realized that they were defeated. Germans have long an important part of western civilization. The German people accepted the fact of their total defeat and they did a remarkable job of rebuilding their country.
Long story short, show me footnotes of any significant terrorist activity in post war Germany before I accept the fact that there was terrorist activity. I do not include black market and criminal activities as such activity.
Most of the Germans in West Germany were just glad we were there to keep the USSR out and they appreciated the Marshall plan which was in place to put them back on their feet.
One final note, in the summer of 1967 I drank beer, sitting in front of the bratwurst restaurant across from the train station in Nuremburg, with a German who had been captured by the French at the end of the war. He told me that he, along with one of his friends, jumped off of the French prison train on the outside edge of a curve. He explained that the machine guns on each end of the train could not be brought to bear on them as they jumped off and escaped.
During the day the pair made their way to an American unit and surrendered. The German then pointed across the street and told me that, within a week, he was walking out of the train station in Nuremburg. He had been processed and released by the Americans to return home. The rest of his unit, captured by the French never returned, they disappeared.
At the end of WWII the German soldier understood the United States treats all people, in difficult situations, differently that other countries treat them. We are still doing this today, even when it does not seem to work.
Iraq didn’t surrender and there was no high way of death. Mercy from a position of weakness, when the enemy has not surrendered or does not believe they were beaten as Germany did not believe they were beaten after WWI, cannot be solved by “graciousness”. In fact, reconciliation without victory simply starts more wars.
OIF 1 was too short a war, with not enough people killed and infrastructure destroyed. It lacked even the Highway of Death psychological toll of Desert Storm. Desert storm, on a psychological warfare front, ranked about a 5 or 4. There’s not a lot of room for the plane to dip in its stall before it craters from that level.
If the indigenous people of a nation does not believe they were defeaten, then they will keep fighting. It just doesn’t matter where Wolverines were or were not. Create the perception of defeat in the enemy population. That is it.
Sergey offered,
“Bush stated this clear, and many times, that Iraq war is an episode of WoT.”
Yeah well it looks like the show got cancelled after one episode, Sergey old buddy – bummer I know, but it got slammed in the ratings. Yeah – not much of a plot and the ending really, really sucked ass.
But I’m sure the crowd will be back for another go some other season.
I’m sure you’ll be tuned in Sergey..
Maybe we should start a naval war somewhere, or an air war.I bet we could win those! But who to fight? Grenada? Panama?Always the question.
Sergey offered,
“Bush stated this clear, and many times, that Iraq war is an episode of WoT.”
Yeah well it looks like the show got cancelled after one episode, Sergey old buddy – bummer I know, but it got slammed in the ratings. Yeah – not much of a plot and the ending really, really sucked ass.
But I’m sure the crowd will be back for another go some other season.
I’m sure you’ll be tuned in Sergey..
It is not cancelled, and even Dems are not so stupid to take responsibility for humilation of surrender. That is why they vote down Murtha. Next year there will be lot of fighting in ME, including Lebanon, Syria and, possibly, Iran. Not so long to wait, Anon, and we all shall see who is idiot indeed.
trot, your proposition is sound enough; but why go to Panama, if you can beat lot of crap out of Iran, both by Navy and Air Force? And Pentagon, it seems, agree with you. Several US air carrier and strike groups are now in the Gulf.
You remind me of Antonov, Sergey. Because Antonov was Russian as well, and when he was intensely focused on some inanity or bureacrat slime, his speech would lose his “definitive” articles like “the”.
Trout, we fight whoever has the most loot the armed forces can haul back for the VA.
Loot, Loot, Loot, that is what gets the boys up to shoot.