Quote:
Originally Posted by M21Sniper
The main reason they are very different is because in Vietnam the VC were backed by a million man strong Army in the North that at times the US military was totally barred from attacking. By 1972 the US has all but wiped out the VC insurgency(and majoritively so by the end of Tet), forcing the insurgency in the South to rely almost entirely on NVA troops to carry on the fight.
In both wars the civvies meddled something fierce(in man it was the pres and SecDef, in Iraq it's just been the SecDef and his cronies).
There are really far more differences than similarities. Ie, Terrain, quality of opposition, etc, etc.
|
There's also no major nations that are openly supplying the Insurgents as a united front with high-quality weapons, training, and occasional special forces assistance as was the case with the Soviets and Chinese in Vietnam. In Iraq the rebels are mainly relying on the black market, 'high-tech' support from Iran and Iraqi Military surplus for supplies. They're also fundamentally different in that the VC were one group fighting for a common set of goals, whereas a lot of the insurgent groups hate eachother as much as they hate the Coalition (The fact that numerous nationalist groups had called for the death of Zarqawi is a good example of this) and are fighting for different goals for different reasons. Some of them are more interested in destroying Iraq than saving it.
Another major difference is the war of hearts and minds has a completely different dimension in Iraq, since there was a lot of resentment to the US of A in country before the invasion, due to Saddam's propaganda, the sanctions and Nothern Watch bombings, the first Gulf war and the subsequent betrayal of a large part of the population during the Shi'ite rebellion in the south. Considering history it's pretty surprising people are helping the Coalition as much as they are, but I guess having Al-Quaeda on the other side does a lot to make the Coalition look more attractive.
In Vietnam the main problem for public relations was the appeal of communism to poor peasants, and the much higher rate of civilian casualties inflicted by Anti-Communist forces in that war.
In general, yeah, they're totally different.