Karnow - Vietnam's Shadow Lies Across Iraq

[realFedUp]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-karnow26sep26,1,1899764.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

Vietnam's Shadow Lies Across Iraq
By Stanley Karnow

Stanley Karnow covered Vietnam from 1959 to 1975. He is the author of "Vietnam: A History" (Viking, 1983) and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize in history. His most recent book was "Paris in the Fifties"

September 26, 2003

snip
The experiences in Southeast Asia and the Iraq conflict have many differences but are analogous in some respects. As they oozed into the region, Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson each justified his commitment by expounding the "domino theory," the concept that Moscow and Beijing had chosen Vietnam as the key arena in which to pursue their grandiose scheme for world domination. Johnson averred that unless we held the line there, we would be compelled to fight the Communist hordes "on the beaches of Waikiki."

Similarly, Bush — permeated with evangelical fervor — has portrayed himself as a crusader and Saddam Hussein as the evil genius behind international terrorism whose influence reached from Indonesia to Algeria, and further insisted that Hussein was close to possessing a nuclear arsenal. But just as his precursors in the White House failed to prove their case that Vietnam was indispensable to U.S. security, Bush has produced no solid evidence to back his allegations.

We were bewildered in Vietnam by our inability to distinguish between our friends and foes, both of whom looked like innocent peasants and fishermen. In Iraq, too, it is hard to separate allies from enemies. Our efforts to reconstruct Iraq's shattered institutions have deteriorated into a nightmare as the nation's profusion of rival political and religious factions compete to promote their sundry programs, thwarting attempts by our troops to impose law and order.

Perhaps the most striking similarity is this: Those of us who covered Vietnam were regularly inundated by civilian and military bureaucrats with piles of glowing details, charts and statistics devised to show progress. We spoofed their daily briefings in Saigon as the "Five O'Clock Follies" and learned from accompanying U.S. soldiers into battle that they were either distorting the truth or blatantly lying.

continued.
(Max Cleland wrote an excellent column and interview on Newsnight about Iraq being shades of Vietnam)