Your historical context that human desire for power is different when it comes to Communism than it does with tribal loyalty and ethnic loyalty (as if religion or belief in community is not ideological) is not useful.

it’s going to have to be the proper historical context

It is far more useful to selectively compare individual actions and causal chains, which is what Neo does in specific instances of Vietnam policy and Iraqi policy.

And I think that, realistically, what’s going to end up happening is that Iraq is going to split into three or more ethno-religious nations, and we are going to have to phase out troops to compensate

Truman’s excuse in Korea was that he didn’t want to use nuclear weapons and escalate a war with Stalin. What’s your excuse for letting the conflict continue to churn out bodies now? That is what a 3 state solution is, when translated into real lives and policies. Balkans as well as Israeli-Palestinian problems bear this out.

There is no such clean-cut ideological distinction in Iraq, nor is there really a primary ethnic-linguistic identity that can qualify as ‘Iraqi’.

Germany wasn’t a nation in the 1600s either. The point is, calling out the obvious as to why the Arab world is the way it is and why it is producing terrorism while sitting on oil wealth but not using it to bring their peoples to the 21st century, is without benefit.

If the Arab world was based upon nationalism like America or even the transnational progressivism of Brussels and the EU, they wouldn’t be producing terrorists, now would they? At least not in the numbers that they are, given that Germany has plenty of homegrown terrorists that have killed Americans and attacked American bases in Germany. They even trade the terrorists in their jails, those that have shed American blood, along with millions of ransom money in trade for hostages.

To the extent that Iraqis are not Vietnamese, that simply means the US must adapt in its treatment of Iraqis, along Kurdish, tribal, and religious lines. If you cannot do so, then that is not the fault of the Iraqis. They are what they are, and if they are ever to change sooner than a few centuries, foreign input will be required.

A three state solution will be about as successful as Korea’s two state solution and Israel’s two state solution. Essentially, it would be no prize worth the American blood and treasure already spent. A wasted opportunity. What’s true for Iraq is also true many fold over for Afghanistan, a much more rural and less cosmopolitan place. I find your analysis, naverhtrad, to be essentially an excuse for failure in everyone of America’s attempts to project power.

America failed in Vietnam when there was national tradition, whatever that means in the day of guerrilla warfare and transnational organizations while fighting French occupation forces. The logic, or realism, would be inescapable that if America failed against a promising backdrop then it would fail even harder against a less promising backdrop called Iraq and the Middle East tribal and family based ethics.

Yet, that ignores the fact that wars are never decided upon a coin toss. The destinies of men and nations are not decided by what occured in the beginning. What America loss, the Communists gained, if only because they got rid of anyone else that might have contested them. Communism itself was a failed ideology yet it won. Victory and defeat are never decided by historical facts. Nor will it in Iraq. Islam may win or it may not. All historical events can be turned outside or strenghtened by turning points. Neo’s point is very valid on this. And history does not care what event or war in question is being affected by a turning point.

Historical context is useless for figuring out how to turn a force one way or another in the present. It is only useful for learning what did or did not work in the past. As such the knowledge that America failed in Vietnam even with a population that had nationalism, can be argued that this then means that America can only fail in Iraq and accept a three state solution.

There are other points of context that can be brought out.

There was a long-standing ethnic and linguistic identity known as ‘Vietnamese’.

But such comments like that only point to one context. As I said, it’s not useful for victory in Iraq.

Instead, what is happening in Iraq is that people are squaring off against ethnic and religious lines. The loyalty of the everyday Iraqi seems not to be placed in the Iraqi central government, but in the local sheikh or Ba’athist politician or Shi’a cleric or gang leader. Realistically speaking, Iraq is a new Yugoslavia, with Hussein having filled in for Tito. And now we’ve got a new series of mini-Balkan wars on our hands, and regardless of whether or not Vietnam is comparable on the home front, if you want historical context to play a role, neo, it’s going to have to be the proper historical context on the Iraqi front. And I think that, realistically, what’s going to end up happening is that Iraq is going to split into three or more ethno-religious nations, and we are going to have to phase out troops to compensate, leaving behind as many as we have to for nation-building and guard duties.

That is the problem.

Hirsh jumps from the end of the Vietnam War to “when I visited Vietnam in late December of 1991”, and points out that the Vietnamese were welcoming us American capitalists back. “This was the “harsh” aftermath that George W. Bush attempted to describe this week when he warned against pulling out of Iraq as we did in Vietnam.”, Hirsh says.

He goes on to make some other points, and some could form the basis for a reasoned discussion, but I’m sorry, I was lost in memory, time-portaled back to my college days and reading Voltaire’s Candide…

“In this best of all possible worlds… everything is for the best.”

Unless of course, you happened to be one of the luckless who live(d) under the volcano.

I guess all those re-education camps, and boat people, and (slightly different topic) Pol Pot’s killing fields, etc, were just a short, inconsequential dream.

Yeah, that’s it, all a dream. And when I wake up, Bobby will be in the shower and we’ll just skip last season.

I feel better now.