A different picture

• Article
• Comments ()
• Click-2-Listen
• Videos

By

It's amazing how many people who've never been to either place say Iraq is "another Vietnam." There are a few differences worth noting.

To begin with, at no point in the Vietnam war did the United States utterly destroy the North Vietnamese Army; occupy North Vietnam; send Ho Chi Minh into hiding, and kill or capture most of his Politburo. Had we done so, the war might have had a different outcome.

Vietnam is mostly jungle. I don't like jungles, but guerrillas do. There is plenty of cover and concealment. There is plenty of water. There are a lot of things to eat. Creepy crawly yucky things, but you can eat them if you have to. A large guerrilla force can live, relatively securely, in jungles for long periods.

Iraq is mostly desert. Desert offers little cover or concealment, less food and water. Large guerrilla forces cannot live in the desert, period, much less live without detection.

The North Vietnamese and their Viet Cong allies were bright, skilled, resourceful, well-led, and very brave.

In Iraq, we're fighting Arabs.

In South Vietnam, we were burdened by supporting an unpopular, corrupt and incompetent government that was riddled with spies.

In Iraq, we overthrew an unpopular, corrupt and incompetent government whose surviving officials are being ratted out by the local population.

In Vietnam, the war progressed in classic Maoist fashion: from terrorism, to guerrilla warfare, to conventional combat between main force units.