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QUAGMIRE: Is Iraq a new Vietnam or ... (Read 7531 times)
El_Pescador
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QUAGMIRE: Is Iraq a new Vietnam or ...
Sep 25th, 2004 at 11:29pm
 
QUAGMIRE: Is Iraq a new Vietnam or is it another Guadalcanal ???


Quote:
Iraq is Not Vietnam, It's Guadalcanal

Friday, September 24, 2004
By Powl Smith


Pundits these days are quick to compare the fighting in Iraq with the American loss in Vietnam 30 years ago. Terms like "quagmire" evoke the Southeast Asian jungle, where America's technological advantages were negated and committed Vietnamese guerrillas wore down the U.S. will to fight.

People love to draw historical analogies because they seem to offer a sort of analytical proof—after all, doesn't history repeat itself? In fact, such comparisons do have value, but like statistics, it's possible to find a historical analogy to suit any argument. And Vietnam's the wrong one for Iraq.

In fact, World War II is a far more accurate comparison for the global war we are waging to defeat terrorism. Both wars began for the United States with a catastrophic sneak attack from an undeclared enemy. We had many faint and not-so-faint warnings of the impending Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor, not least the historical precedent of Port Arthur in 1904, when the Japanese launched a preemptive strike against Russia.

We had similar ill-defined warnings and precedents about Al Qaeda and Islamist terrorist (the East Africa embassy bombings in 1998; the USS Cole bombing in 2000), but in 2001 as in 1941, we lacked the "hard" intelligence requisite to convince a country at peace that it was about to pitched into war.

Historical apologists say that the Japanese were "forced" to attack us because we were strangling their trade in Asia. Sound familiar? American foreign policy in the Middle East is responsible for the anger and rage that has stirred up Al Qaeda, right? In fact, there is a crucial similarity between the Japanese imperialism of 50 years ago and Islamic fundamentalism of today: both are totalitarian, anti-Western ideologies that cannot be appeased.

As Japan amassed victory after victory in the early days of the war, America and our allies could see that we had a long, hard slog ahead of us. Americans understood there was no recourse but to win, despite the fearful cost. This was the first and foremost lesson of World War II that applies today: Wars of national survival are not quick, not cheap, and not bloodless.

In one of our first counteroffensives against the Japanese, U.S. troops landed on the island of Guadalcanal in order to capture a key airfield. We surprised the Japanese with our speed and audacity, and with very little fighting seized the airfield. But the Japanese recovered from our initial success, and began a long, brutal campaign to force us off Guadalcanal and recapture it. The Japanese were very clever and absolutely committed to sacrificing everything for their beliefs. (Only three Japanese surrendered after six months of combat—a statistic that should put today's Islamic radicals to shame.) The United States suffered 6,000 casualties during the six-month Guadalcanal campaign; Japan, 24,000. It was a very expensive airfield.

Which brings us to the next lesson of World War II: Totalitarian enemies have to be bludgeoned into submission, and the populations that support them have to be convinced they can't win. This is a bloody and difficult business. In the Pacific theater, we eventually learned our enemies' tactics—jungle and amphibious warfare, carrier task forces, air power—and far surpassed them. But that victory took four years and cost many hundreds of thousands of casualties.

Iraq isn't Vietnam, it's Guadalcanal—one campaign of many in a global war to defeat the terrorists and their sponsors. Like the United States in the Pacific in 1943, we are in a war of national survival that will be long, hard, and fraught with casualties. We lost the first battle of that war on Sept. 11, 2001, and we cannot now afford to walk away from the critical battle we are fighting in Iraq any more than we could afford to walk away from Guadalcanal.

For the security of America, we have no recourse but to win.

Lieutenant Colonel Powl Smith, U.S. Army, is the former chief of counterterrorism plans at U.S. European Command and is currently in Baghdad with Multi-National Forces-Iraq.


El Pescador

 

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thorin
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Re: QUAGMIRE: Is Iraq a new Vietnam or ...
Reply #1 - Sep 26th, 2004 at 2:00am
 
Unfortunaltely your one step above a major is incorrect; I wish he were correct.  Iraq is Nam all over again.  We sent troops into Nam without a defined purpose, the general populace of Nam did not want us there - just the people we put into power (sound like somebody who visited the States last week?).

El Pescador, I wish your beliefs were correct, but I don't believe they are.

 

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Re: QUAGMIRE: Is Iraq a new Vietnam or ...
Reply #2 - Sep 26th, 2004 at 3:17am
 
Quote:
... El Pescador, I wish your beliefs were correct, but I don't believe they are...

thorin
A well thought out and courteous reply, and for that, I am grateful.  In turn, I seek your opinion for an exit strategy and a resolution to this whole affair (if you can solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to boot, send me your address so I can sign up to work in your campaign for public office).

I do ask that you mull over this:  In the closing years of the Civil war, William Tecumseh Sherman was literally considered a madman in every sense of the word - there were even efforts afoot to have him relieved of duty and confined to an asylum.  In fact, he turned out to be the visionary who convinced Ulysses Simpson Grant of a revolution in military affairs (railroads, steamboats, rifled muskets/cannon, et cetera) that impelled the Union Army to adopt Draconian tactics to demolish the very industrial, agricultural and economic infrastructure of the Confederacy in contravention of all accepted rules of warfare of the day.

Therefore, my contention is that those advisers of Dubya labeled as 'neocons' or the like are one of two things - either they are utter madmen, or they are visionaries working so far out in front of the curve no one will appreciate them for a generation or more.  After all, Sherman was never fully accorded his due until this day.

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Re: QUAGMIRE: Is Iraq a new Vietnam or ...
Reply #3 - Oct 4th, 2004 at 8:58am
 
Before going into military history read this guy
and than you know the neocon are conman.
http://antiwar.com/lind/
 
 
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El_Pescador
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Re: QUAGMIRE: Is Iraq a new Vietnam or ...
Reply #4 - Oct 4th, 2004 at 10:51am
 
Quote:
... Before going into military history read this guy
and than you know the neocon are conman...

Karin
Ah, yes - William S. "Bill" Lind - he is high on my list of favorite commentators.  He is best known for his series of commentary on what he calls 'Fourth Generation Warfare' and I prefer to call 'Asymetric Warfare'.  To my amusement, he has described the Neocons as actually being Neo-Trotskyites.

Both he and I are great admirers of Genghis John (the late and sorely missed John R. Boyd).  How did you run across hime (I saw my first reference to him in Air Force Magazine right after 9/11 and have followed his commentary ever since)?

In all seriousness, what are your thoughts on improving the situation in Iraq and the Middle East?

El Pescador
 

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thorin
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Re: QUAGMIRE: Is Iraq a new Vietnam or ...
Reply #5 - Oct 4th, 2004 at 6:31pm
 
AT6 (SNJ) driver,

I believe your bringing up Sherman's advisors, and comparing them to shrub's misses all marks - I am not sure why you brought it up (possibly to obfuscate the obvious)!

But as to you request for an exit strategy - the same one we ended up using in nam should work fine - just get out.  We are going to do that sooner or later; so, why not do it before more innocents - both American or Iraqi -  have to die?  I realize I am taking as a given that we cannot do in Iraq what we could not do in nam, but if you wish to use history as a guide, then it appears I will be correct.

Oh well, the war got shrub's poll numbers up and the 2004 election is his to loose, but if he would promise to get out during the 1st year of his 2nd term, I would vote for him - not that my vote would make any difference here in Texas.

 

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Re: QUAGMIRE: Is Iraq a new Vietnam or ...
Reply #6 - Oct 4th, 2004 at 8:43pm
 
Quote:
... possibly to obfuscate the obvious...

thorin
To respond to this comment, I would need to know which generation do you belong.  I am from the generation that grew up post-Korea, pre-Vietnam, i.e., Berlin Crisis / Cuban Missile Crisis - and yes, I did 'take a long walk in the hot sun' so very long ago.

Quote:
... an exit strategy - the same one we ended up using in nam should work fine - just get out...

thorin
Vietnam was a sideshow to the Cold War, nasty enough - but within the overall global context, the most chilling prospect was global thermonuclear warfare - an acute prospect indeed.

Now we face the chronic prospect of a global struggle liable to extend over generations that could ultimately turn out to be the most disruptive conflict in human history from the standpoint of economic, cultural and scientific progress.

My personal opinion is that until one has read - and comprehended - Thomas L. Friedman's "The Lexus and the Olive Tree", the actual nature of this struggle cannot be appreciated to any meaningful degree.

El Pescador


P.S. Congratulations on your sharp eye; that is a 1941 North American AT-6 in SNJ livery; it is used as a jitney by the only female gypsy barnstormer extant.  She has another that is a 1946 model, plus a Boeing Stearman done up like the old original "Yellow Peril".  As an aside, I am informed through backchannels that the National Museum of Naval Aviation at NAS Pensacola was virtually devastated - much worse than the "official" news releases indicate.
 

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thorin
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Re: QUAGMIRE: Is Iraq a new Vietnam or ...
Reply #7 - Oct 4th, 2004 at 9:46pm
 
Lifer in CAF - had not heard about Pensacola - did not get to see it, but have heard it was an outstanding collection.

Viet Nam era vet - served my 3 years in London where the most dangerous mission I had was driving on the correct side of the road after coming out of a pub.

You and I will never agree on this general subject (part of what makes America great), but I do disagree with the original light col's assessment of the present conflict; comparing it to WW II is, in my mind, a complete traversity of what WW II was and still means to this Country.
 

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Re: QUAGMIRE: Is Iraq a new Vietnam or ...
Reply #8 - Oct 5th, 2004 at 1:14am
 
Quote:
... Lifer in CAF ...

thorin
Visit the Sim-Outhouse - I think you might find some give-and-take over there to your liking.  Topics range across aviation history, flight simulation, WarBird restoration, et cetera - and some Vietnam vets who share your sentiments do sound off in the forums:

http://www.cfcforums.com/vbindex.php

Quote:
... You and I will never agree on this general subject (part of what makes America great),...

thorin
Meet the same people I meet, go to the same reunions I attend, read the same books I do ... you might be surprised, particularly as you advance well into your sixties ... at 19, I was marginally to the right of Che' Guevara - now I am marginally to the left of Augusto Pinochet.

I spent 4 days and 3 nights in late summer of 2002 surrounded by survivors of the four battallions of WWII Marine Raiders at their annual reunion held that year in New Orleans.  They were our nation's first SpecOps unit - some actually fighting on Guadalcanal/Tulagi - and all somewhere in the Solomons Chain early in the war.  Later on, many wound up in the Sixth Marine Division on Okinawa after the Raiders were piecemealed.  During the 'bull sessions' in the Hospitality Room, the consensus was that Western society will eventually face the gravest of threats in the GWOT, albeit a 'twilight struggle'.

El Pescador


P.S. Here are a couple of Marine aviators (Joe Foss and Jeff DeBlanc) photographed on Pearl Harbor Day, 2001 prior to a parade and dedication ceremony celebrating the opening of the Pacific Wing of the National D-Day Museum in New Orleans:

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