NYT: Vietnam Archive Offers Parallel to War in Iraq
COMMENTARY
Let me offer you just a few ways that the Vietnam War is different than the Iraq War. These are important things the article doesn't point out.
To peruse the war in Vietnam, a war engaged and escalated by two Democratic Presidents, the youth of the country were subject to the draft. At age 18, every American male registered with the Selective Service System. If you were able bodied and your number was up, you better be in college or in Canada, if not, you were going to boot camp.
Atrocities in Vietnam were on a different scale. In Vietnam, US forces were held accountable for civilians indiscriminately massacred and villages burned. In Iraq, the US atrocities are limited to terrorist prisoners being made to lay around with dogs while stripped naked, save for a hood.
The NYT article refers only to the "Nixon Administration." However, Nixon inherited the war from Kennedy and Johnson, along with some foolish rules of engagement that insured the US couldn't win. And by the way, Nixon ended the Vietnam War.
NEWSBYTE
Vietnam Archive Offers Parallel to War in Iraq
WASHINGTON, Nov. 16 - White House advisers convene secret sessions on the political dangers of revelations that American troops committed atrocities in the war zone, and whether the president can delicately intervene in the investigation. In the face of an increasingly unpopular war, they wonder at the impact on support at home. The best way out of the war, they agree, is propping up a new government that can attract feuding elements across a fractured foreign land. Read full story.
TENSION: Manufactured
GRAVITY: Nill
Tags: current events, politics, News, terrorism, Middle East, Bush, White House, Iraq, war, yellow journalism, mainstream media, press, Republicans, Democrats, Vietnam, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon
Let me offer you just a few ways that the Vietnam War is different than the Iraq War. These are important things the article doesn't point out.
To peruse the war in Vietnam, a war engaged and escalated by two Democratic Presidents, the youth of the country were subject to the draft. At age 18, every American male registered with the Selective Service System. If you were able bodied and your number was up, you better be in college or in Canada, if not, you were going to boot camp.
Atrocities in Vietnam were on a different scale. In Vietnam, US forces were held accountable for civilians indiscriminately massacred and villages burned. In Iraq, the US atrocities are limited to terrorist prisoners being made to lay around with dogs while stripped naked, save for a hood.
The NYT article refers only to the "Nixon Administration." However, Nixon inherited the war from Kennedy and Johnson, along with some foolish rules of engagement that insured the US couldn't win. And by the way, Nixon ended the Vietnam War.
NEWSBYTE
Vietnam Archive Offers Parallel to War in Iraq
WASHINGTON, Nov. 16 - White House advisers convene secret sessions on the political dangers of revelations that American troops committed atrocities in the war zone, and whether the president can delicately intervene in the investigation. In the face of an increasingly unpopular war, they wonder at the impact on support at home. The best way out of the war, they agree, is propping up a new government that can attract feuding elements across a fractured foreign land. Read full story.
TENSION: Manufactured
GRAVITY: Nill
Tags: current events, politics, News, terrorism, Middle East, Bush, White House, Iraq, war, yellow journalism, mainstream media, press, Republicans, Democrats, Vietnam, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon
posted by Steven Moyer at 10:22 PM
1 Comments:
Even though the war in Iraq is different from the Vietnam war there are some parallels that make both conflicts rather absurd and costly. I think if the stability in Iraq were to degenerate to civil war the US would be in a situation far closer to vietnam that it is now.
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