President George Bush's claims about what will happen if we pull out of Iraq is almost word-for-word identical to Richard Nixon's speech explaining why we must not pull out of Vietnam.

 

A "precipitate withdrawal" would result in a bloodbath, destabilization of Southeast Asia, would embolden our enemies and result in more war not less, Nixon said. And that is what Bush is saying, if you substitute "Middle East" for "Southeast Asia."

 

Nixon succeeded not in winning the war in Vietnam, but in prolonging it until 21,000 more young Americans died in the jungles and rice paddies. Then we withdrew, and none of Nixon's predictions came true.

 

To draw a further parallel, we got into the Vietnam War because the people who put us there: (1) didn't know the history; (2) didn't speak the language; (3) didn't understand the culture; and (4) arrogantly assumed that American firepower and technology could overcome any and all obstacles.

 

The Vietnamese were able to defeat us, despite our superiority in firepower and technology, because it was their country and we were foreign invaders. The people were on their side, not ours. They knew they could wear us down. They were willing to lose millions of people, and we weren't.

 

The current president, who really does seem to occupy a state of denial, has always refused to accept the fact that most of the opposition to our occupation of Iraq is simply Iraqis who don't want foreigners occupying their country. He has always tried to blame the resistance on outsiders – al-Qaeda or Iran or Syria. There are some outsiders in Iraq, but they wouldn't survive two days if it were not for the American occupation.

 

The question Congress hasn't asked about the president's so-called new strategy of spreading American troops all around Baghdad is, What's going to happen when they leave, as they inevitably will? The president's strategy is based on the assumption that if we can dampen the violence, Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds will embrace and form one united, secular government.

 

That is a foolish assumption. Shi'ites were dumped on every day of every year since British and French politicians created Iraq out of the wreckage of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I. This is the first time ever they have held the reins of power. They are not going to give them up or even really share them with the Sunnis. The Kurds are interested in an independent Kurdistan and don't particularly like Arabs anyway. Iran will help the Shi'ites, and the Saudis will send money to the Sunnis.

 

Whether we leave or stay, the fighting will go on until one faction or another attains dominance. That means there will be no democracy in Iraq. And President Bush is wrong when he claims that all people desire freedom. They first desire survival and security.

 

So President Bush will accomplish the same thing Richard Nixon accomplished. He will get more Americans killed, and eventually we will pull out of Iraq. It's not just the casualties that will drive us out; it is the enormous expense, the wear and tear on the Army, the necessary neglect of important domestic problems, and the political divisions at home, which will only grow more exacerbated.

 

Our present emperor has no clothes. If the American people want to survive with some prosperity and sense of security, they'd better find a new emperor who at least has the brains and intellectual curiosity to play the Great Game on the international chessboard. So far, the wannabe emperors don't show much promise.

 

 

 

Charley Reese has been a journalist for 49 years.

 

http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese355.html

As they say, history repeats itself quite often.

 

 

The Vietnamese were able to defeat us, despite our superiority in firepower and technology, because it was their country and we were foreign invaders. The people were on their side, not ours. They knew they could wear us down. They were willing to lose millions of people, and we weren't.

 

 

partly true, about us not willing to lose millions, but thats not really why we lost. we lost 'nam because of being tied up in our own rules of war. if we would have allowed the military to use its full strength (not talking nuclear) and do more warlike actions like bomb the hell out of the north's dams and stuff like that it would have ended rather quickly in the south's and our favor. remember nam was not considered a war at the time, but a 'police action' and the general's hands were often tied by washington. perhaps this was partly to prolong that war in order to feed the military industrial complex some influential people were making money off of? or so they say. still, even that scenario sounds familar in iraq today too, eh?

 

Didn't I just read something that sociologists predicted we would fail in Iraq because we did not understand the culture.  Not sure where I read that, but my point and the point of the article was that we approached Iraq as if our cultures were the same and the expectations of the Iraqi people are the same as ours.  They aren't.  We did not count on the close familial ties and the "klans" (authors words not mine) that cause a lot of infighting.  That being said, the likelihood of completely stopping things like the random car bombs is slim to none.  We should be concentrating on infrastructure.  I think the ultimate goal of "W" was to establish a military presence in that area.  Iraq was an easy target.  Too bad he had to lie to do so under the guise of "freeing the Iraqi people".  As the bumper stickers say "Clinton lied but no one died".

>>That is a foolish assumption. Shi'ites were dumped on every day of every year since British and French politicians created Iraq out of the wreckage of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I.<<

 

The fundamental flaw of our policy in Iraq (just like in Vietnam) is that we are trying to keep a country together that was not created by the indigenous people of the area...but by colonial Europeans who thought they knew everything about everyone. Iraq would probably be better off split into thirds....One Sunni nation, One Shiite, One Kurd. Of course...a fair election would be one where they decide where the boundaries are. This stupid "mapmaking" the Europeans did created alot of the economic and social mess you see in Africa, the Middle East, South America and Asia. America is perpetuating what the Europeans created for our own interests....which is shitty to the people who live in these countries. That being said, the world map you see today was mostly created by the Europeans with their silly colonial idealism and I wish they'd pony up and take responsibility as well instead of playing naysayer and saying the world problems today were created by the US.

And yet where do those lines go?  The Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds don't exactly divide geographically so easy as that.  What happens to those who end up on the wrong side of the line?  It's not so easy to hammer nation-states out of tribal and religious divisions.

And yet where do those lines go?  The Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds don't exactly divide geographically so easy as that.  What happens to those who end up on the wrong side of the line?  It's not so easy to hammer nation-states out of tribal and religious divisions.

 

Ah, but you see at least you'd have an idigenous area for these people to live. What if France streched from Spain to Germany. Do you think the millions of Germans or Spanish would be happy? Currently the Kurds are divided between Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran, even Russia. Having a homeland is really a beginning towards peace. They want to be left alone.

 

As for Shia and the Sunni, giving each the piece of the pie gives Al-Queda and its buddies some problems. They play the each group of each other to incite violence. It would be hard for them to keep it up if each country had a homeland that they could call their own. Now they may bitch and moan and try to say this is mine and that is theirs....but just like in Europe...over time it'll get old.

 

Keeping Iraq in it's current state isn't gonna work, ever. Just like splitting Vietnam in two didn't.

From an American perspective, one of the reasons why we are opposed to breaking up Iraq is because it would create three weak states that would be overshadowed by Iran.  In fact, it was for that very reason that Bush's father left Saddam in power:  to be a check on Iranian power.

 

If we did partition Iraq: who would get Baghdad?

 

 

Ah, but you see at least you'd have an idigenous area for these people to live. What if France streched from Spain to Germany. Do you think the millions of Germans or Spanish would be happy? Currently the Kurds are divided between Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran, even Russia. Having a homeland is really a beginning towards peace. They want to be left alone.

 

This of course points out the biggest reason why there isn't ever going to be an independent Kurdistan- it would result in even more unrest in the Kurdish areas of Turkey, and possibly the rest of those countries as well.  Kurdistan could conceivalbly prosecute its claim to their territory based on common ethnicity and treatment of their people as minorities in these neighboring states.  The neighboring countries won't allow it to happen therefore, and if they did, it would likely lead to more conflict as border disputes and/or insurgencies arose.

 

As for Shia and the Sunni, giving each the piece of the pie gives Al-Queda and its buddies some problems. They play the each group of each other to incite violence. It would be hard for them to keep it up if each country had a homeland that they could call their own. Now they may bitch and moan and try to say this is mine and that is theirs....but just like in Europe...over time it'll get old.

 

It will get old, but before or after ethnic cleansing?

Nixon could construct a sentence, too. He was actually a politician & a statesman.

I don't know what Bush is.

Bush was a "loyalty enforcer" for his father's campaign team.  He probably never should have risen above that level, because he's filled the government with fellow incompetents and cronies.

X and The Last Don,

 

I'm not disagreeing with you at all. I'm really just throwing out another option. I actually think about this alot...because whether we like it or not, if America leaves there will be good likelihood of death on a scale maybe not ever seen in the Middle East in modern times. Iraq as a nation-state will never work without an American or multinational military presence or a dictator that can suppress it's rather large minorities.

 

Which goes back to my original point. Iraq should never have been created in the first place. This problem could have been solved 90 years ago with seperate nation states when the region was a helluva lot more peaceful. At the time the Ottoman Empire had collapsed and there was no strong central government in the region. Instead of talking to locals and working on long term plan for successful nations...the area was carved up like a suburban subdivision. You guys bring up some good points why it wouldn't work now. Again, why the US thought it should take complete ownership on this issue because of 9/11 is beyond me. This is something that the US should have forced the Europeans to figure and solve, they created the original mess there.

 

One clarification though, the Kurds are mostly a peaceful people and just want to be left alone. Would they claim territorial rights in other countries? Yes. Would it lead to border skirmishes? Maybe. I think they'd be willing to sit down with other countries to hammer out issues and come to a common agreement. The real problem to a successful Kurdistan would be the Turks who are very territorial not just to Kurds but to groups like the Armenians as well. BTW, I still can't believe Turkey is being allowed to enter the EU with the way they treat their minorites.

 

As for the ethnic cleansing thing, I have trouble buying it. Shia and Sunni aren't different ethnic groups. If the Shia and Sunni decided to invade Kurd territory...the Turks would probably invade Kurdistan in order to 'maintain the peace' on their border.

George Bush dancing with Africans:

>if America leaves there will be good likelihood of death on a scale maybe not ever seen in the Middle East in modern times.

 

Well 1,000,000 did die in the Iraq-Iran War which Saddam is single-handedly responsible for starting 25 years ago.  Of course considering mall stores sell "CCCP" shirts this country's youth can't be expected to take history or military threats seriously.

The Soviets were a much bigger threat to us than these terrorists are. To quote my professor, these bastards hijack planes with box cutters and attach sh!t to themselves in order to blow sh!t up. They're not powerful. Yet look at how much money we're spending on the war. I don't like where our priorities are. Something is wrong when Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate than us.

 

 

>if America leaves there will be good likelihood of death on a scale maybe not ever seen in the Middle East in modern times.

 

Well 1,000,000 did die in the Iraq-Iran War which Saddam is single-handedly responsible for starting 25 years ago.  Of course considering mall stores sell "CCCP" shirts this country's youth can't be expected to take history or military threats seriously.

 

One mil is a drop in the bucket if the Shia and Sunni have free reign. And the Iraq/Iran was 1 mil over decades, I bet they could top that number in a year.

 

Since you brought up Saddam...he's the one that played the two groups off of each other. If these groups had their own nation-states to begin with, it would have been a bitch for Saddam to get into power in the first place.

 

BTW, if that 'CCCP' comment was some sort of slam at me, son...I've kept in communications with my extended family in Vilinus for over 25 years. You won't EVER catch me in some Soviet garb. Lithuanian tye-dye is always a possibility.

 

If it wasn't meant as a slam...shingai nemasu.

partly true, about us not willing to lose millions, but thats not really why we lost. we lost 'nam because of being tied up in our own rules of war. if we would have allowed the military to use its full strength (not talking nuclear) and do more warlike actions like bomb the hell out of the north's dams and stuff like that it would have ended rather quickly in the south's and our favor. remember nam was not considered a war at the time, but a 'police action' and the general's hands were often tied by washington. perhaps this was partly to prolong that war in order to feed the military industrial complex some influential people were making money off of? or so they say. still, even that scenario sounds familar in iraq today too, eh?

 

^All of this crap you wrote was false.  We didn't need more bombs; strategic bombing has never been successful (at least not until this war, with the integration of GPS http://www.slate.com/id/2162791/).  Also, North Vietnam didn't have the industrial infrastructure that bombers were designed to destroy.

 

"More warlike actions"?  What the hell does this mean?  What sort of strategy does this imply?  A "war of posts" like Washington decided upon after the British utilized their superior mobility to capture New York and nearly destroy the Continental Army?  Or the strategy of constant attrition (and I don't mean this in the usual pejorative sense that people imply when they speak of U.S. Grant) that was embodied in Grant's order to Meade: "Lee's Army will be your main objective point."?

 

The U.S. was unsuccessful in Vietnam because the Vietminh represented the future and were a modern force fighting modern enemies (and they defeated the French, the U.S. and the Chinese in turn) with a modern political system.  They recognized their strength, and created one of the world's great infantries and used it to great success.  The South Vietnamese government was merely a hodge-podge of people generally opposed to the Communists.  It represented only this, was a semi-feudal system, knew none of their strengths, had none, and was therefore unsuccessful.

 

As bad as the U.S. conception, execution and ever-evolving justification of this ridiculous war in Iraq is, the fact is that the mayhem that exists over here exists because Iraqis are killing Iraqis.  Iraqi civilian deaths far outnumber American deaths, so most of the violence isn't being used to expel the invader, it's being used to terrify and expel the neighbor.  The fact is that there is a power vacuum in Iraq and the opportunity for the United States to fill that vacuum has passed.  The insurgents and militias have the strategic initiative vis-a-vis coalition forces.  We respond to their attacks.  Also, the Shia goverment with whom the U.S. is ostensibly allied, is either engaging in or passively allowing ethnic/sectional cleansing.  This sullies the United States (not to mention goes against the stated goals of the coalition).  This is similar to the Vietnam conflict, in that the U.S. states is allied to a government that is not a government in any sense of the word conceived by the average American.

 

Thankfully, the opposition elements don't have the strength, focus, discipline or goals of the Vietminh.  In this way the conflict differs greatly from Vietnam.  In my opinion, the United States, while staying heavily engaged in regional diplomacy, needs to begin withdrawing from Iraq.  By withdrawing, we will actually be regaining the initiative- notice how the insurgents/militias disperse when confronted with a large American force.  They do this to allow them to keep the initiatives, so that we always fight them on their terms.  Granted, withdrawal is always a move associated with some weakness, but to recognize ones weakness and play to ones strength is the essence of good strategy.  The United States has many more strengths than the insurgents/militias do, but maintaining basic law and order, i.e. policework, is not something that the U.S. military is well equipped to do.  And it is nearly impossible for it to do it when there is no effective local power that shares our goals.

 

Nixon was a douchebag but Bush can't hold a candle to him.  Nixon went to China.  That's grand strategy, highly successful and relevant.

>Charley Reese has been a journalist for 49 years.

 

Let's rewind here...Nixon did not order American troops into Vietnam, the infallible John Kennedy did and the scope of the effort was greatly expanded by Lyndon Johnson, both Democrats.  Reese was around then and knows that, he's just taking advantage of the fact that America's under 30 population wasted their high school days putting condoms on bananas instead of studying American history.     

 

But even if American students did study history, it doesn't really matter because the masses have short memories.  That's what so much of 1984 was about (for those of you who, uh, remember that one).  So much of that book was also about how a government (or an advertiser of some idiotic product) finds purpose when they present an enemy, real or invented.  In that book the enemy was always in the distance.  A rocket occasionally fell in the city and mortar fire could sometimes be heard over the horizon but the ordinary citizen had no real contact with the conflict.  All of their information was through state-controlled media.  Obviously we have an independent media here but 99% of them are total clowns so it usually doesn't seem any better (although it IS infinitely better) and Mr. Reece adds nothing to the discussion.  It's hilarious how in journalism you can do maybe two hours of research, toss out some piece like this, and you get $1,632 direct deposited every Friday sometime around 10:15am.     

 

 

 

>BTW, if that 'CCCP' comment was some sort of slam at me, son...I've kept in communications with my extended family in Vilinus for over 25 years. You won't EVER catch me in some Soviet garb. Lithuanian tye-dye is always a possibility.

 

No I threw that out there because there's this 23 or 24 year-old Indian guy at my work who came over here probably around age 11 and wears a damn CCCP shirt once every week or two.  Reminds me of Andre The Giant Has a Posse...a repeated logo of any kind takes on significance merely through its repetition despite having no original meaning.  But this guy probably thinks CCCP is a Columbus sports team of some kind. 

 

Let's rewind here...Nixon did not order American troops into Vietnam, the infallible John Kennedy did and the scope of the effort was greatly expanded by Lyndon Johnson, both Democrats.  Reese was around then and knows that, he's just taking advantage of the fact that America's under 30 population wasted their high school days putting condoms on bananas instead of studying American history.

 

American military support to the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) began during the Eisenhower administration.  I think that by the time of Kennedy's death the number of "advisors" was up to 11,000.  It's always fun for partisans to blame a single person, but the fact is that the ever-increasing American involvement in Vietnam was encouraged by the broad U.S. post-Second World War consensus.  Kennedy should have known better about what he was doing (he was arguably the most informed legislator, both as a congressman and as a senator, on the issue of Vietnam); as the most political of generals, Eisenhower should certainly have known better; and even the Truman administration knew that the aid they were giving France in support of the anti-Soviet alliance was going to fight their colonial war against the Vietminh, despite the fact that the U.S. refused to support that war outright.  These caveats aside, it was during Lyndon Johnson's administration that American involvement was expanded to where it became the war that we are talking about.  The Iraq War Resolution of 2002 is stupidly similar to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution of 1964.  Both times Congress effectively handed over it's war powers to a deceitful Texan.

 

Obviously we have an independent media here but 99% of them are total clowns so it usually doesn't seem any better (although it IS infinitely better) and Mr. Reece adds nothing to the discussion.  It's hilarious how in journalism you can do maybe two hours of research, toss out some piece like this, and you get $1,632 direct deposited every Friday sometime around 10:15am.

 

Nicely put.  What I've always been amazed about is how most of those columnists continue to work and be taken seriously when their predictions consistantly fail to occur.  Their job is to be predictive, yet when their statements do not come to pass, there is no penalty.  They don't lose their jobs, or have their salary reduced.  Same thing with a lot of sports announcers.  Hell would be me stuck in a room with Tim McCarver and Charles Krauthammer (Wash. Post) without duct tape and a screwdriver.

Also a big thing people don't know about writers for the bigger papers and magazines is that there are teams of researchers on staff to do the dirty work for the star reporters.  When I heard this, those long investigative articles in the New York Times, Newsweek, etc., were instantly a lot less impressive (although many weren't impressive to begin with).  In short the "writer" is more the director of a small team of researchers who then assembles their work into a multi-page article.  I'm sure the opinion writers at the big papers also have access to these researchers.  The most hilarious writer of the past few years has been Victor Davis Hanson of National Review who has been wrong, wrong, and wrong in everything he's predicted. 

 

Not interested in writing a long post here, but let me point out a few major things which seem to have eluded the popular mind.  The U.S. never had control of the entire country of Vietnam.  There was always a struggle for territory throughout that war.  But the U.S. rolled over all of Iraq in 2003 in just one month despite it being an overall much smaller U.S. force.  As percentage of GDP the U.S. is spending much less on the Iraq War than it was in Vietnam and I believe even less than it was during peacetime during Reagan's tenure.  During Johnson's time the country had several hundred thousand troops in Vietnam, was stockpiling nuclear weapons, was spending roughly as much money and effort on the space program as Vietnam, and building the interstate highway system all simultaneously.  Now there's this relatively small military conflict in Iraq (As percentage of GDP, the Iraq war pales even in comparison to construction of the Erie Canal), a space program riddled with nerdy love triangles, not as many new nuclear weapons, and a federal government that spends over half of the annual budget on social security and social welfare programs.   

 

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/02/americans_should_take_the_budg.html

 

^Well according to the pie graph accompanying one of those articles I was complaining about in the first paragraph, the U.S. defense budget fifty years ago was 60% and today it's just 20%.  From memory I know that the country's population has roughly doubled in that time and the size of the economy has quadrupled.  Also this writer takes a jab at Amtrak in just the way these kinds of people take jabs at things they haven't thoroughly researched.     

 

 

 

Interesting discussion about Vietnam (sort of) and military spending.  Military spending is a perennial policy wonk question.

 

Here are some charts I googled up that are interesting from the long view.

 

First, comparing the "military burden" (% of GDP I think) of the three great powers + the US in the pre WWI era.  I highlighted possible military events that caused spikes in those budgets.  Interesting to see the % so high for France, indicating the French were comitting relatively more resouces to to defense than Germany was (though in absolute numbers, given the economic strength of Germany, the Germans could have been spending more).

 

 

Then a long term look at US defense spending as % of GDP.  Note how low it was prior to WWII, back when Romania had a bigger military than the US (but, quality not quantity...we were really advancing in terms of military technology & tactical thinking in the 1920s & 30s, even with a small military budget).

 

 

But that is just % of GDP.  In actual dollars this chart is more important, showing the defense spending has been more or less within a certain range during the Cold War and even post Cold War era (given those broad troughs and peaks), but showing an overall slow upward trend

 

 

Then, integrating the actual dollars and % GDP graphs, with a markup by me showing the "price of being a superpower"...comparing a demobilized military $$$ (just after WWII and before the Cold War) with a 'superpower' defense budget at the lowest postwar trough (the 1970s).

 

 

This is the chart that shows, based on total outlays, defense spending, though within a somwhat stable range, has been decreasing as a % of the federal budget.

 

 

And a right-wing think tank source comparing defense spending with entitlements. (big important thing here is that defense is discretionary vs entitlements.  Defense consumes about 50% to 60% of discretionary spending.

 

 

And a NYT chart that shows pretty much the same thing, but breaks out the slices better.

 

 

...finally, just for grins, defense and federal spending vs total outlays and reciepts (the "deficit") ...as % of GPD again.

 

 

And then some sand charts opening up the defense budget a bit more for the recent past, showing how the defense budget responds to external events...the final Cold War challenge with the USSR, the small First Iraq War spike, then the peace dividend era, finally the post 9-11 spike...and then the interservice budget split.

 

 

 

The real lesson here, I guess, is that  it costs money to be a military superpower and, even with the "peace dividend" , there was not much drop from the range of spending in constant dollars during the Cold War era.  Yet, for all that, the military is not the big contributor to total federal spending, though it does crowd out  federal discretionary spending for things like mass transit, national parks, housing programs...things like that.

 

Also, the US economy is not that impacted or burdened by defense spending (the % of GDP number) as it was when Eisenhower made his famous farewell address.

 

 

 

if we would have allowed the military to use its full strength (not talking nuclear) and do more warlike actions like bomb the hell out of the north's dams and stuff like that it would have ended rather quickly in the south's and our favor.

 

We deliberatly limited ourselves to not directly confronting NVA due to the fear arising from the Cuban Missle Crisis, of having a direct confrontation with either China or the USSR.  This governed more the LBJ era of the war.

 

Nixon was more active, hence the Cambodian incursions and the interdiction campaigns into Laos (aimed at the Ho Chi Minh trail).  Still, not super-effective.

 

We really didn't take our gloves off until 1971, when we had to force NV to negotiate a "peace with honor" (AKA a face-saving withdrawl).

 

At that time we unleashed a major bombing campaign directly against the north, including things like dams and dilkes on the rice paddys in the Red River delta, and on the harbor at Haiphong...and, even more important, we mined Haiphong harbor, which meant NV couldnt get war materiel from their Soviet allies (the USSR was using East Germany to supply NV by sea).

 

After that the NV negotiated our withdrawl.