Elmer's Brother

Is Iraq Vietnam? Ask Those Who Know.
That Iraq is "another Vietnam" was a cliché long before the U.S.-led coalition even liberated Baghdad, but lately the drumbeat has become louder and more tired than ever. A Google News search for "Iraq" and "Vietnam" turns up more than 6,500 articles in the past month; this piece from Bloomberg News is typical:

An unreliable ally in a U.S.-led war against guerrillas, declining public support at home and lack of a coherent exit strategy: That was Vietnam 35 years ago, and it increasingly seems to fit Iraq today.

Is Iraq really similar to Vietnam? Only in the sense that some in politics and the media would like to see America lose. That is to say, much of the Vietnam talk we've been hearing is wishful thinking. As Andrew Sullivan wrote in July 2003:

There's an under-current of complete gloom in news reports that seems to me to be more fueled by ideological fervor than sober analysis. Given the magnitude and complexity of the task of rebuilding post-Saddam Iraq, it seems to me we're making slow but decent progress. The lack of a complete social implosion or exploding civil war is itself a huge achievement. And no one said the post-war reconstruction was going to be easy.

So what's behind this drumbeat of apocalypse? I think it's a good rule among boomer journalists that every story they ever edit or write or film about warfare will at some point be squeezed into a Vietnam prism.

But here's one honorable exception. Last week USA Today asked people who would actually know if Iraq is "another Vietnam": Vietnam veterans now serving in Iraq:

If there are parallels between Iraq and Vietnam, these graying soldiers and the other Vietnam veterans serving here offer a unique perspective. They say they are more optimistic this time: They see a clearer mission than in Vietnam, a more supportive public back home and an Iraqi population that seems to be growing friendlier toward Americans.

"In Vietnam, I don't think the local population ever understood that we were just there to help them," says Chief Warrant Officer James Miles, 57, of Sioux Falls, S.D., who flew UH-1H Hueys in Vietnam from February 1969 to February 1970. And the Vietcong and North Vietnamese were a tougher, more tenacious enemy, he says. Instead of setting off bombs outside the base, they'd be inside.

"I knew we were going to lose Vietnam the day I walked off the plane," says Miles, who returned home this month after nearly a year in Iraq. Not this time. "There's no doubt in my mind that this was the right thing to do," he says. . . .

1st Sgt. Patrick Olechny, 52, of Marydel, Del., an attack helicopter crew chief and door gunner in Vietnam from March 1971 to February 1972, says the most important difference to him is the attitude of the American public.

"Vietnam was an entirely different war than this one," he says. The basic job of flying helicopters is the same, but the overall mission now is clear when it wasn't then. "We thought in Vietnam we were doing the right thing, and in the end it didn't seem that way," he says.

Now, "the people in the United States respect what the soldiers are doing," says Olechny, who still fills in at the door gunner position when he can get away from his administrative duties.

Browning, recently back from two weeks of R&R in the USA, says he was overwhelmed by the reception he got stateside: More than a hundred people met the airplane to help the soldiers and wish them well. "I can't tell you what, as a Vietnam vet, that means to me," he said.

What mystifies us is why some politicians think defeatism is a winning political strategy. That didn't work last year, and it didn't work even during Vietnam.