I'm too lazy to go into anymore detail right now. Maybe later.

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And while the seagulls are crying,
We fall but our souls are flying.

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Quote: from Miden at 9:33 pm on June 3, 2008

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Nope. Anyone who claims they are close to the same needs to read up on history some more.

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Full of shit.  Please explain further.  Oh wait, you can't.

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-Completely different political situations  

-like others have pointed out. The scope and death toll is nearly incomparable.

-The public outrage of Vietnam was much worse. Sure the Iraq war is very unpopular, but we have not seen the likes of public outrage that occurred due to Vietnam.  

-The War in Iraq and Vietnam involved different enemies, different theatres of war, different motives, different in just about every way.  

-Many would even argue the claim that Iraq is even a true War

The points you made, although not all incorrect, are generalized and misconstrued.

Post edited at 9:45 pm on June 3, 2008 by Miden

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It may be true that you can't fool all the people
all the time, but you can fool enough of them to rule a
large country. -- Will Durant

With Vietnam, the US was focused in defending South Vietnam from the North Vietnamese and refused to invade North Vietnam - only bomb them.  Hence the US wasn't trying to "defeat" the enemy, but rather, wear them out to the point where they stop fighting.

Whereas with Iraq, the US has already gone in, totally defeated the opposing Iraqi army, and even executed the Iraqi leader.  Now the US is focused with trying to occupy the country and rebuild it, which was never the case with Vietnam.

Of course, let's not forget that the guerilla fighting in Vietnam was much more severe because the dense jungles and cities in Vietnam make that kind of fighting much easier.  You have that kind of fighting in Iraq, but as most of the country is a large open desert or flood plains, you don't have it so much.

I'd say the war in Iraq has far more parallels to the US occupation of the Philippines in 1898 to 1913, where the US had just destroyed the Spanish and took their colony of the Philippines.  At the same time, the Philippines were fighting for their independence from the Spanish and believed the US was helping them, only to be stabbed in the back and have a new colonial master - the US.  The US justified itself and its casualties in the Filipino resistance on the grounds that it's developing and westernizing the Philippines, which is very similar to today's US's justifications for Iraq (except without the element of terrorism, which has been emphasized ever since Iraq was proven to have not had any WMDs - thus even these two situations paralleling each other is a stretch).

Pre-Surge Iraq can be argued to be very similar to Vietnam in that counterinsurgency tactics were not used and the results were much of the same. Furthermore, neither the SVA nor the Iraqi army are capable of standing on their own and require the Americans to do most of the work. The Hmong are kind of like the Kurds, but that's somewhat of a stretch.

Also, Vietnam was to prevent Communism from spreading, essentially maintaining Western Influence and stability. If you understand the real reason for Invading Iraq, it's similar in maintaining western influence and resource stability.

But the biggest similarity is the failure of the US to adapt to the environment and enact counter insurgency tactics until Petreaus and his brain trust were given authority.

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"I give the probability of this working at zero" - Dan DeMatteo