Thread: Is Iraq Another Vietnam? Actually, It May Become Worse

Lull,

I got caught in a Shia Sunni firefight and riot in Lucknow on Moharrum. I know how 'dedicated' you guys are to your ''cause". That is why I dread what you say since much of it is not imagination.

I wonder if any other on this forum has been caught up in a Moslem firefight and riot to be authentic in their opinion. Neither am I since I just saw one riot! I saw it once and that was good enough.

That aside. You want Afghanistan to fail. You want Iraq to fail. Fine.

What happens then?

Should we not try to bring some semblance of sanity?

OK the US is wrong. But, history can't be changed.

Let's look beyond.

Or is that asking for too much?

Originally Posted by Ray

Lull,

I got caught in a Shia Sunni firefight and riot in Lucknow on Moharrum. I know how 'dedicated' you guys are to your ''cause". That is why I dread what you say since much of it is not imagination.

I wonder if any other on this forum has been caught up in a Moslem firefight and riot to be authentic in their opinion. Neither am I since I just saw one riot! I saw it once and that was good enough.

That aside. You want Afghanistan to fail. You want Iraq to fail. Fine.

What happens then?

Should we not try to bring some semblance of sanity?

OK the US is wrong. But, history can't be changed.

Let's look beyond.

Or is that asking for too much?

Man I don't want anything to either pass or fail or what ever! All I am saying is my opinion! These 2 campaigns will fail and you now it! The mouzlums are totally empowered right now, and they are coming in from all over the world! They honestly believe that this is the final showdown! With the mulla's telling them that if they kill a U.S. soldier they will immediately go to Heaven and blah blah. Do you understand now that alluja was a tactical defeat for the U.S. army??? more than 800 of the 1400 Iraqi dead were women and children! Its all over yaar! its too late! Here is an inetresting article:

Nationalism and Islam: Fuel of the Resistance

The truth is, the neoconservative scenario of quick invasion, pacification
of the population with chocolates and cash, installation of a puppet
³democracy² dominated by Washington¹s proteges, then withdrawal to distant
military bastions while an American-trained army and police force took over
security in the cities was dead on arrival. For all its many fractures, the
cross-ethnic appeal of nationalism and Islam is strong in Iraq. This was
brought home to me by two incidents when I visited Iraq along with a
parliamentary delegation shortly before the American bombing. When we asked
a class at Baghdad University what they thought of the coming invasion, a
young woman answered firmly that had George Bush studied his history, he
would have known that the Americans would face the same fate as the
countless armies that had invaded and pillaged Mesopotamia for the last
4,000 years. Leaving Baghdad, we were convinced that the young men and
women we talked to were not the kind that would submit easily to foreign
occupation.

Two days later, at the Syrian border, hours before the American bombing, we
encountered a group of Mujaheddin heading in the opposite direction, full of
energy and enthusiasm to take on the Americans. They were from Libya,
Tunisia, Algeria, Palestine, and Syria, and they were the cutting edge of
droves of Islamic volunteers that would stream into Iraq over the next few
months to participate in what they welcomed as the decisive battle with the
Americans.

As the invasion began, many of us predicted that the American invasion would
face an urban resistance that would be difficult to pacify in Baghdad and
elsewhere in the country. Famously, Scott Ritter, the former UN arms
inspector, said that the Americans would be forced to exit Iraq like
Napoleon from Russia, their ranks harried by partisans. We were wrong, of
course, since there was little popular resistance to the entry of the
Americans to Baghdad. But we were eventually proved right. Our mistake lay
in underestimating the time it would take to transform the population from
an unorganized, submissive mass under Saddam to a force empowered by
nationalism and Islam. Bush, Rumsfeld, Richerad Perle and Wolfowitz constantly talk about their dream of
a new Iraq. Ironically, the new post-Saddam Iraq is being forged in a
common struggle against a hated occupation.

So It was great under Saddam, right?

Here's a real thought provoking article fro the London Telegraph by a professor of political science, international relations and policy:

Power and Vainglory: Iraq Isn't Another Vietnam - It's Much Worse
The images of abused prisoners demonstrate not just American depravity, says the philosopher John Gray, but the folly of waging war as a moral crusade
by John Gray


Misguided from the start, the war in Iraq is spiraling out of control. Any legitimacy the occupying forces may ever have possessed has been destroyed, and there are signs that Iraqi insurgents are coming together to mount a movement of resistance that could render the country ungovernable. With even more damning images likely to find their way into the public realm in the near future, the United States is facing an historic defeat in Iraq - a blow to American power more damaging than it suffered in Vietnam, and far larger in its global implications.

The inescapable implication of currently available evidence is that the use of torture by US forces was not an aberration, but a practice sanctioned at the highest levels. Undoubtedly there were serious breaches of discipline, and the blank failure to understand that they had done anything wrong displayed by some of the abusers does not speak well for the levels of training of sections of the US military.

Abuse on the scale suggested by the Red Cross report cannot be accounted for by any mere lapse in discipline or the trailer-park mentality of some American recruits. It was inherent in the American approach to the war. American military intervention in Iraq was based on neo-conservative fantasies about US forces being greeted as liberators. In fact, as could be foreseen at the time, it has embroiled these forces in a brutal and hopeless war against the Iraqi people. From being regarded as passive recipients of American goodwill, they are now viewed as virtually subhuman. If, as seems clear, British forces are innocent of anything resembling the systemic abuse that appears to have been practiced by the Americans, one reason is that they do not share these attitudes.

The resistance mounted by the Iraqi insurgents can be compared to the anti-colonial liberation struggles of the 1950s, but the closest parallels with the intractable conflict now under way are found in Chechnya, which remains a zone of anarchy and terror despite the ruthless deployment of Russian firepower and the systematic use of torture for more than a decade. It was the prospect of an intractable guerrilla conflict that led many soldiers in the Pentagon to express deep reservations regarding the war. When the civilian leadership launched the invasion of Iraq, US forces were plunged into a type of conflict for which they are supremely ill equipped.

In the wake of Vietnam and Somalia, American military doctrine has been based on "force protection" and "shock and awe". In practice, these strategies mean killing anyone who appears to pose any threat to US forces and overcoming the enemy through the use of overwhelming firepower. Effective in the early stages of the war when the enemy was Saddam and his regime, they are deeply counter-productive when, as in Iraq today, the enemy comprises much of the population. As Douglas Hurd has observed, filling the hospitals and mortuaries is not the best way to win hearts and minds. The effect has been to make the conflict more savage. It is in circumstances such as these that torture becomes routine. In Iraq over the past year, as in Chechnya, and before that in Algeria where the French fought a similar dirty war, anyone could end up a victim of torture.

In subjecting randomly selected Iraqis to abuse, American forces are following a well-trodden path, but the type of torture that has been practiced has some distinctive features. Unlike the Russians or the French, who inflicted extremes of physical pain as well, US forces in Iraq appear to be relying mainly on techniques that focus on the application of intense psychological pressure. In order to soften up detainees they have swept up from the streets, they have used disorientation, sensory deprivation and sexual humiliation. These are all forms of abuse that would damage any human being, but leading naked Iraqi males around on dog leads and covering their heads with women's underwear look like techniques designed specifically in order to attack the prisoners' identity and values. The result is that an indelible image of American depravity has been imprinted on the entire Islamic world.

It remains unclear how these techniques came to be used in Abu Ghraib prison. What is evident is that from the start of the war on terror the Bush administration has flouted or circumvented international law on the treatment of detainees. It unilaterally declared members of terrorist organizations to be illegal combatants who are not entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention. The detainees held at Guantanamo Bay fall into this category, and so apparently did the Taliban and al-Qa'ida suspects who were captured in Afghanistan. Being beyond the reach of international law, they were liable to torture.

In Iraq, the Bush administration evaded international law by a different route. They outsourced security duties at Abu Ghraib and other American detention facilities to private contractors not covered by military law and not regulated by the Geneva Convention. In effect, the Bush administration deliberately created a lawless environment in which abuse could be practiced with impunity.

Some of the lawmakers who watched video stills of the sexual abuse of Iraqi women by US personnel in a closed session on Capitol Hill in Washington last week have described the behavior they witnessed as un-American. Maybe so, but it was made possible by policies emanating from the highest levels of American leadership. The torture of Iraqis by US personnel is an application of the Bush administration's strategy in the war on terror.

Tossing aside international law and the norms of civilized behavior in this way is self-defeating. Not so long ago, the clash of civilizations was just a crass and erroneous theory, but after the recent revelations it is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. In toppling Saddam, the Americans destroyed an essentially Western regime, not unlike the Stalinist Soviet Union in its militant secularism. In doing so, they empowered radical Islam as the single most important political force in the country.

The immediate beneficiary of the torture revelations is likely to be Iran - a fact that seems to have been grasped by Ahmed Chalabi (the Iraqi émigré that the neo-conservatives believed would take the country to American-style democracy), who appears to be forging links with the Iranian regime. At a global level, the principal beneficiary is al-Qa'ida, which is now a more serious threat than it has ever been.

The Bush administration's self-defeating approach to terrorism is symptomatic of a dangerous unrealism running right through its thinking. For Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Defense Secretary, and other neo-conservatives, the solution to terrorism was to "modernize" the Middle East. For them, that meant overthrowing many, if not most, of the area's regimes and replacing them with secular liberal democracies. They appear not to have noticed that the region's secular regimes were authoritarian states such as Syria and Iraq. In the Middle East today, as in Algeria in the past, democracy means Islamist rule.

In part, the attack on Iraq was simply another exercise in the type of neo-Wilsonian fantasy that is a recurring feature of US foreign policy, but it was also an exercise in realpolitik - and a resource war. A key part of the rationale for the invasion was to enable the US to withdraw from Saudi Arabia, which had come to be seen as complicit with terror and inherently unstable.

If it was to pull out from Saudi Arabia, the US needed another source of oil. Only Iraq has it in sufficient quantities - hence the drive for regime change. In this Dr Strangelove-like vision, once Saddam had been removed and Iraq remodeled as a Western-style democracy, the oil would start flowing. The war would be self-financing, and the world economy would move smoothly into the sunlit uplands.

Things have not turned out quite like that. Oil prices have risen, not fallen, and they could easily rise further. Partly this is a result of the increasingly desperate security situation in Iraq. The Americans did more than overthrow Saddam's despotic regime; they also destroyed the Iraqi state, with the result that the country is now in a condition of semi-anarchy.

Given the ill-judged attack by US forces on the Shia holy city of Najaf and the likelihood that the beheading of Nicholas Berg by Islamist militants will be followed by more such atrocities, the level of violence in the country will almost certainly escalate. In that case, Iraq will be the scene of a mass exodus. International organizations and Western oil companies will leave and any prospect of rebuilding the country will be lost. Where will that leave Iraq - and its oil?

The exodus will not be confined to Iraq. Western companies are already leaving Saudi Arabia, the producer of last resort in the global oil market. Emboldened by the worsening situation in Iraq, forces linked to al-Qa'ida have intensified their attacks on Saudi targets. Economists may say that the world need not fear another oil shock, but they have forgotten the geo-political realities. Saudi oil is still hugely important, and any sign of increased instability in the country is immediately reflected in the oil price. The impact of a major upheaval in the kingdom would be incalculable.

The US cannot afford an ongoing war in Iraq, but the price of a quick exit will be high. Even so, it looks clear that that is exactly what is about to happen. After the torture revelations, "staying the course" is no longer feasible. This is not because the American public has reacted with massive revulsion to evidence of the systematic abuse of Iraqis - as has been the case in Britain and other European countries. Rather, Iraq and its people are now viewed with a mix of bafflement and hatred, and a mood of despair about the war has set in. Most Americans want out - and soon. Locked in internal dispute, the Democrats have not so far been able to grasp the nettle. The pressure on President Bush to announce that America has completed its mission with the handover of sovereignty may well prove overwhelming.

If he decides to cut and run, Bush may yet survive the débâcle in Iraq. No such prospect beckons for Tony Blair. It was his brand of messianic liberalism that dragged Britain into the war. For the Prime Minister, going to war in Iraq offered an intoxicating feeling of rectitude combined with the reassuring sense of being on the side of the big battalions. But American invincibility was a neo-conservative myth, and the notion that Blair can survive the hideous fiasco that is unfolding in Iraq is as delusional as the thinking that led to the war in the first place. It cannot be long before he is irresistibly prompted to seek new avenues for his messianic ambitions.

In the US, American withdrawal will be represented as a reward for a job well done. The rest of the world will recognize it as a humiliating defeat, and it is here that the analogy of Vietnam is inadequate. The Iraq war has been lost far more quickly than that in South-east Asia, and the impact on the world is potentially much greater. Whereas Vietnam had little economic significance, Iraq is pivotal in the world economy. No dominoes fell with the fall of Saigon, but some pretty weighty ones could be shaken as the American tanks rumble out of Baghdad.

The full implications of such a blow to American power cannot be foreseen. One consequence is clear enough, however. The world has seen the last of liberal imperialism. It died on the killing fields of Iraq. It is no consolation to the people of that country, but at least their sufferings have demonstrated the cruel folly of waging war in order to fight a liberal crusade.

It is stupid that you want US to withdraw.

Fine, they are not the best to win the hearts and minds, but then it is insane to quit now.

In the US, American withdrawal will be represented as a reward for a job well done. The rest of the world will recognize it as a humiliating defeat, and it is here that the analogy of Vietnam is inadequate. The Iraq war has been lost far more quickly than that in South-east Asia, and the impact on the world is potentially much greater. Whereas Vietnam had little economic significance, Iraq is pivotal in the world economy. No dominoes fell with the fall of Saigon, but some pretty weighty ones could be shaken as the American tanks rumble out of Baghdad.

OK. now let us take it from the US stand point. Can they have a second Vietnam?

They will be the biggest laughing stock of the world. No chance pal. They also have some self respect.

If your jihadis are so charged about their 'cause' and ready to die, then I am sure Americans would also sacrifice their lives and not give up the ship andtheir national prestige.

The suggestion is suicidal in all respect that the US quits.

Read 'The picture of Dorian Gray'.

Originally Posted by Ray

So It was great under Saddam, right?

No Ray! Saddam is a meglomaniac despotic genocidal tyrant!

but its no one's business what he was! its not our problem! and I think more ppl will die needlessly the longer it takes for us to understand that

A good rule of thumb is! Stay in your countries, and mind your own business!

The world is a very dangerous place now! the first propaganda goal and justification ( of waging this war) has been destroyed by that very simple fact, that the world is a whole lot more dangerous!

You gotto understand Ray that 9-11 was a decleration of war on the U.S. by the islamists! And in all honesty it is a war that the U.S. cannot win, unless there are serious policy changes! Until policy changes are not made, and implemented, until then our nation will be under attack!

P.S. You can gauge the validity of the above by a few very simple observations!

1) Is the world safer now from terror?

Ans. NO!

2) Is Iraq safer, and democratic? and will it survive without life support?

Ans. NO!

3) Is Afghanistan a haven fro democracy? Have things/ conditions improved for the common Afghan?

Ans. NO!

4) Has Osama and his organisation been dismantled? Have we hurt Al-qaeda? And if so how much? is Alqaeda as deadly as it was 3 years ago when it pulled the impossible??? Do you believe that there has been an astronomical increase in Al-qaeda's or general islamist recruitment? Are seeing its effects now in the streets of Falluja an Ramadi and Baghdad and Basra? and increasingly so in Afghanistan where the 2 cent puppet controls a small area of Kabul, while the rest of the country still is ruled by the same warlords and the same mulla's

It is really the gravity of the situation in number 4 that scares me! iraq/ Afghanistan and all these other places and that stupid axis of evil list and blah blah doesnot affect us! it also makes us pause and think for a second Ray that one day, the money will stop coming! Just like it did for the then erstwhile, Soviet Union! Just out of the blue! Already there are signs for that happening! A historically weak dollar, a growing lack of confidence in the U.S. economy, and poor investement, coupled with thi war spending....... You gotto ask yourself Ray, how long will this go on??? or is this grand Neocon agenda a way to stave off the inevitable? Is the U.S. begining to go into Decline??? with implications like the article I posted above implies??? What do you think?

Ask me after 4 years.

That is just to get you off my back!

Its 1.22 AM here and I will just have something for dinner and then go to bed.

It is a heavy day tomorrow. I have to attend a wedding in the family much that I don't want to.

The worst part is that I don't eat the oil and spice charged food that they lay out. Big waste of money. And India is a poor country!

It is Hostility to the stomach in the name of Hospitality!

As they said in my unit during barakhanas - Muhn ke mazaa Gaan* ke saza! To use your style of syntax!

Yeah thats basically what Indian food does to me to!

My ass basically throws up!

Originally Posted by lulldapull

but its no one's business what he was! its not our problem! and I think more ppl will die needlessly the longer it takes for us to understand that

It's everyone's business. What about the needless killing by Saddam? If you don't care about that, then you shouldn't care now either.

Originally Posted by Confed999

It's everyone's business. What about the needless killing by Saddam? If you don't care about that, then you shouldn't care now either.

No Confed, I care now because now our 18 year olds are dying needlesly, when you know and I know that in a matter of a few months/ years, these Neocons will pull out, and we will be stuck with that "Vietnam withdrawl" syndrome once again!

All I gotto say is that a jury convened, and a military type court summoned, and these "Wolfowitz's" and "Richard Perl's" tried and swiftly executed for squandering away our countries resources and lives and making the world a much more dangerous place.

This is treason of the highest prder! With each day that passes our position worsens! Today the goddamn CIA finally dropped the Dime on us! Any hopes of any sort of stabilization, whatsoever are now gone. And if you read hat article I pasted up above about it being worst than vietnam, you'd undestand why!

Originally Posted by lulldapull

No Confed, I care now because now our 18 year olds are dying needlesly

People are people, no matter where they come from. You accuse the "neocons", who ever you think they are, of being nationalistic, well, check out a mirror...

Originally Posted by lulldapull

when you know and I know that in a matter of a few months/ years, these Neocons...
[etc., etc., etc.]
...Any hopes of any sort of stabilization, whatsoever are now gone.

You know I don't buy into your conspiracy theory junk, there's no reason trying to use it to prove your point to me.

Originally Posted by lulldapull

And if you read hat article I pasted up above about it being worst than vietnam, you'd undestand why!

I read it. It's one "philosopher's" opinion. I don't see where it cites any evidence of validity, over any other scenario.

Give it up Lull, your boys are losing, why don't you join them and vainly attempt to turn the tide and save us the senceless babble?

The US is not doomed to failure in Iraq. It is, however, not doing very well.
This is not the fault of the US military. Oh no, I point the finger of blame squarely at the Bush administration, with particular reference to Donald Rumsfeld, and his 'Lean War' strategy. It was his idea to fight the war on the cheap, with only 130 000 troops, to minimize the economic strain the war would create, as this would be damaging for the Bush administration. Indeed, the massive cost of the first Gulf War was one of the major reasons Bush the elder only served one term.
The only problem is that 130 000 troops is enough to maintain the surface area of the offensive, but it was nowhere near enough to stabilise Iraq. Proof of this comes from the huge wave of post-invasion looting, which US troops were unable to control because there simply wasn't enough of them. This has had the lasting effect of making Iraqis think that the Coalition was not really committed to Iraq's stability. Indeed, the continued violence, especially against the Iraqi police, may have been reduced if there had been more US troops available to help protect the Iraqi police, who are now diserting en masse to avoid, well, being killed.
It seems that the only way Iraq's security forces are going to get on their feet is if the US forces take to protecting all their bases, and screening them for insurgents (a genuine Vietnam parallel, as it was common for the VC to infiltrate the ARVN). If the US cannot rely on the Iraqi military, then there is no point in continuing the war. Another problem for the US is the large numbers of ex-Republican Guards in the Iraqi National Guard. The brutal, mercinary style of these soldiers only serves to alientate people from the Coalition. In general, the only way the US can stabilise Iraq is to greatly boost troop numbers, to give their troops more extensive knowelegde of the country, as there appears to be a great deal of misunderstanding between the Americans and the Iraqis, and to try harder to bring in more nations, particularly Muslim nations, to help with the operation.
The US also needs to understand that they cannot win the war in Iraq wth military force, as the resulting civilian casualties only strengthen the insurgency.
However, given the Bush administration's apparent unwillingness to committ enough troops to the operation, or to compromise with other nations that might be willing to get involved, it seems that Iraq may yet become another military and political nightmare such as Vietnam.

Originally Posted by -{SpoonmaN}-

The only problem is that 130 000 troops is enough to maintain the surface area of the offensive, but it was nowhere near enough to stabilise Iraq.

It could have been alot better had France, Germany and the UN showed up and did the right thing, the UN still won't go to Iraq. Its likely for the better anyway, the corruption in the UN is only just starting to be revealed....