Two years on, the echoes of Vietnam are getting louder

[Monkie]

As the Iraq insurgency grows, so do the similarities with Indochina

Max Hastings
Friday June 24, 2005
The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1513554,00.html

"As the 8th Cavalry's armoured vehicles roared forth on patrol, their occupants seemed infused with the same bewilderment about an unknown enemy that one remembered so well in the boondocks of Indochina. These soldiers' view of Iraq was determined by what they could glimpse through their weapon slits, or at night on their infra-red screens.

"We're trying to save their lives," said an exasperated officer about the Iraqis, "but they're not helping us by getting in our way." Soldiers quizzing local people through interpreters on a house search are young men from Ohio or Wyoming, Georgia or New Jersey. Yet cocooned in helmets and sunglasses, body armour and weapons that conceal almost every inch of flesh, they do not seem human at all. They resemble the robot legionaries of Darth Vader.

The doctrine of "force protection" - making preservation of American lives the first mission priority - has made US forces unconvincing peacekeepers in Somalia and the Balkans, Vietnam and Lebanon. So, too, has insensitivity about the interests of the people they are allegedly fighting to help"

i think this is one of the best explainations of why an American army can never bring peace or democracy to another culture..

[saigon68]

1. "We're trying to save their lives,"

The person who said this is brainless and clueless and understands nothing about nationalism. If 80% of the country wants you out you will eventually be kicked out or give up after you ruin your own economy and credibility

Thanks Uncle Ho.

[leftchick]

2. more IraqNam speak here...

morning saigon. I found this gem of a quote from an idiot in a link maddezmom posted this morning. Sound familiar?

~snip~

BAGHDAD - Rebel attacks in the capital are expected to rise in coming weeks despite US-Iraqi efforts to stem them, as insurgents try to play up insecurity in the country, a US military official said Friday.


"I think there will be a lot of small attacks in the next couple of weeks with the Iraqi prime minister going to the United States," Lieutenant Colonel Michael Pryor of the US 3rd Infantry Division's Task Force Baghdad said.


"They're trying to influence the international population through the media that Iraq may not be as secure as everyone makes it out to be."

...and get this!

~snip~

But according to Pryor, insurgent attacks are becoming less coordinated and less successful. "We think the intent is just to cause a lot of noise to make it seem like there are a lot of activities," he said.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=13858

[saigon68]

6. Been there Done That

Seen that

More of the same lies from the Bush Criminal pack of Draft-Dodgers.

[Roland99]

8. That's the type of person the military counts on. Total sheep.

[saigon68]

9. Some one here likened it to

Picking the "LOW HANGING FRUIT"

[Roland99]

10. And now they're going for the diseased fruit lying on the ground.

[saigon68]

15. FREEDOM IS ON THE MARCH-- The chimp

[TahitiNut]

13. It reminds me of me in 1969.

When I arrived in Viet Nam (I still prefer the old way of spelling it), I did so with the simplistic and naive notion that I could justify my service under the misapprehension that I was seeking to support the rights and liberties of other human beings, and their ability to have a form of government answerable to ordinary people. While I was vaguely aware of the colonialist puppet plutocracy in power in the South, I believed the ordinary Vietnamese preferred it to the totalitarianism of the North and welcomed our help.

As a naive "child of the Elvis Presley and Sandra Dee era," I guess I felt that our military could, to some degree, be a kind of armed Peace Corps.

It was only after some months there that I began to see a more stratified (hierarchical) conflict, where powerful global interests were fighting over who could exploit these people and pillage their common resources for narrow gain -- and felt that I had more in common with the NVA "soldiers" than I did with my own government or the governments of either the North or the South.

There were far more than just two or three "sides" in that war ... and far more than a few simplistic "reasons" for that war. The maxim that "politics makes strange bedfellows" has a whole different import when you're under the sheets.

[leftchick]

3. nice, they shoot people's pets too...

This war was lost before it was started. This is sickening but a must read.

Thank you for posting it and welcome to DU.

~snip~

There was a powerful scene in the TV film, in which a bored and jumpy soldier impulsively put a bullet into a dog. Its owner emerged from his house, bent over his pet's corpse for a moment, then walked away, throwing up his hands in impotent misery. Whatever commanded that man's loyalty six months ago, who can doubt which side he is on today.

[raccoon]

4. How could they not hate us? nt

[WhiteTara]

5. what tv film?

was it fiction or non fiction?

[NNN0LHI]

11. According to the article it is a scene from a documentary...

...that aired on BBC last month.

Don

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. It was a PBS Frontline documentary

that aired in the US in February, called "A Company of Soldiers". The BBC showed it this month.

[Monkie]

17. the casual nature of the killing of that pet caught my eye too

tried to imagine what it would take for me to do that and failed.
and thank you for the thanks&welcome, you manage to post an impressive amount of material here that we should thank you for too

[Pathwalker]

7. How do you say Donald Rumsfeld in Iraq? Robert MacNamara.

n/t

[ms liberty]

12. I grew up watching Nam on the nightly news...

and I was 10 in 1969, so throughout my whole childhood I saw the war. I told everyone I could as often as I could that Iraq would be another Nam. No one wanted to listen. I live in a very rural, southern county in NC, and they had already been primed by their religious and political leaders to the blind jingoism of unquestioned support. Jingoism may seem a strong word, but it is apt. When we began (openly) bombing Iraq, I got into a discussion with one of my coworkers, and tried to tell her the facts. She screamed at me the conversation ender..."I don't care about the facts. We're in a war and we have to support our troops". The next day, my (new) car was keyed, and I began to be ostracized by many of my coworkers. I didn't really care; I just worked there, and while it made work less pleasant, I didn't let it change my mind. It made me more careful of who I spoke to about the war and this criminal administration.
Now, more people every day are waking to the facts, and I am vindicated; but it's too late and I take no joy in the knowledge that I was right.
I remember one day in particular, the day I knew that this would be worse than even I could imagine. Nothing especially important that I remember happened on that day; it was just a Tuesday, the day my Time magazine came in the mail. On that issue, the cover said it all. It was a picture of Rumsfeld, and the headline: "Rumsfeld's Blueprint for War". Looking at that cover, before even opening the magazine I knew, and I felt a cold hard knot in my gut that is still there. Because I remembered learning some time ago about an earlier Time cover, from the VietNam era, with a picture of (I think) General Westmoreland and a similar caption.

I've downloaded and read all the Downing Street Memos. That is more than most of the msm in this country have done. This administration is guilty of deliberately lying to the American people, the world, and to Congress, in order to prosecute an unjust war for political and financial gain. The corporatized media is guilty of aiding and abetting the administration in order to realize political and financial gain. Both of them have twisted and violated the Constitution to foist this abomination of justice upon the world.

The only comfort I have now is the knowledge that there is life after life, and karma does work, whether or not you believe. I want all those SOB's impeached, arrested, prosecuted, and jailed if we can do it. If we can't, I know the karma they have incurred will exact the justice I so desire.

[EVDebs]

14. Just like Vietnam, it all comes down to how long the money lasts

to pay for the ongoing fiasco and who is put in charge. In Vietnam, they had ambassador Graham A. Martin, who lost a foster son (Glenn Dill Mann, KIA Nov 1965, while Martin was amb to Thailand).

To the bitter end Martin was pushing for more money, while guys in the Pentagon were miffed they couldn't pay for gas to put into their vehicles in long gas lines. Needless to say, the money was cut off.

[DemoTex]

16. Never mentioned because of Bu$hco connections with the House of Saud...

Many of the foreign insurgents fighting and bombing in Iraq are, like most of the 9/11 terrorists, Saudi Arabian. Iraq-nam shares an extensive frontier border with Saudi Arabia. Bu$hco tells us that insurgents are coming into Iraq from Syria. Some probably are. But I think there is a Ho-Chi-Mihn-Trail type of supply line from Saudi Arabia into Iraq. I think Bu$hco knows this too.