Who Said Vietnam?

There is no comparsion in my opinion the major difference no one really talks about is the fact that Vietnam was largley fought by a army of people drafted intyo the military.

Sent by Francis German | 2:50 PM | 8-23-2007

President Bush missed the comparison to Vietnam: We should never have been in Vietnam and we should never have been in Iraq. We are making ourselves a target of terror by our own actions in the world. Let's change our tactics!

Sent by Ann Jamieson | 3:28 PM | 8-23-2007

First, it's amazing that Bush would invoke the War he deserted.
Second, Vietnam had a nasty but unified stable government - Iraq is anarchy, promising a much worse situation.
Third, we contributed significantly to the Cambodian genocide by protecting the Khmer Rouge from the Vietnamese military.
Third, he has repeated the lie that al Quida is why we're in the war.
Bush's brain has left the building...

Craig Parada, Alviso, California

Sent by Craig Parada | 3:30 PM | 8-23-2007

It is quite incredible to say that the US withdrawal from Vietnam led to the Khmer Rouge and the killing fields. It was the so called secret bombing by the US in Cambodia which killed 500,000 civilians in Cambodia and created the instability which led to the Khmer Rouge gaining power> Subsequently, the Khmer Rouge killed 2.5 million people and the US did not oppose the Khmer Rouge because they were enemies of the communist Vietnam government.

Also overlooked is the devastating effects of the secret bombing in Laos. The effects of the use of cluster bombs there still has a terrible costs in Laos.

Sent by Michael Budig | 3:30 PM | 8-23-2007

For President Bush to make the analogy, now, after resisting it for so long, is absolutely disingenuous. Additionally, his - or his speechwriter's - memory of the Vietnam War is extraordinarily selective. Our involvement in Vietnam, at its beginning, and at its heart, was a Cold War proxy war. Curiously, President Bush and his people tried to make the invasion and occupation of Iraq a proxy war with al Qaeda, when al Qaeda had no presence in Iraq.

We could go on and on comparing and contrasting the two costliest mistakes in American foreign policy. General Davidson correctly notes with amazement that we could make the same policy blunders that we made in Vietnam again by invading Iraq.

Let me close with a prediction of another parallel: there may very well be a coup overthrowing Nouri al-Maliki in favor of Ayad Allawi, as Diem was overthrown in favor of Thieu. Allawi is making his case, not to the people of Iraq, but to the Bush Administration. That's some democracy, Mr. President.

Sent by Steve Jones | 3:34 PM | 8-23-2007

Your guest was talking about the low numbers of soldiers lost in the Iraq war compared to Vietnam and Kores. My understanding is that medical technology has so helped to change the outcome of the number of casualties that I wonder if the comparisons were made without that medical advantage what would the numbers of dead be?

Sent by Tania Fowler | 3:37 PM | 8-23-2007

Four million Iraqis driven from their homes, more than 600 thousand killed, two major cities turned to rubble, the infrastructure wrecked. I love this bloodless, passionless discussion by people who cannot be hurt by this hideous war. We were wrong going into Vietnam, we were wrong going into Iraq.

Sent by Linda O'Connell | 3:39 PM | 8-23-2007

The comparison is valid to this degree: Vietnam and Iraq are both quagmires that the US got itself into by listening to bad advice from venal leaders whose corruption was only surpassed by their ignorance. Revisionist history is a fun pastime but when it is used to justify maintaining a failed policy, as it now is by the Republican Media Machine, it descends into propaganda of the kind that Goebbels would be proud of.

The truth is that in Vietnam, and in Iraq, we should never have gotten involved in the first place and that involvment is what lead to the deaths of millions of Vietnamese and thousands of Iraqi, not the getting out. It is amazing that anyone is listening to these ex-military officers who claim that we "could have won" in vietnam and by leaving they lament the deaths of millions. But they do not seem to lament the deaths of the millions they killed in the war with their indescriminate bombing of North Vietnam. Those millions were just collateral damage. You cannot "win" a war when you invade and occupy a country, kill millions of the inhabitants, disrespect their culture and traditions and install a puppet government that will fall like leaves when you pull out. Just like Vietnam.

The military war machine and its allies sees itself as the moral liberators of mankind while the rest of the world increasingly sees it as the biggest threat to peace and stability in the world today. Until we can overcome that disjuction all the revisionist history in the world will sound like nothing more than the same old apologetics..."we could have won the war if..."

Sent by George from Oregon | 3:43 PM | 8-23-2007

Victor Davis Hanson noted that we have had far fewer deaths among American troops than during the Korean or Viet Nam wars. We have much better medical care available for the immediate treatment of the injured than in the earlier wars. Probably the total killed and injured will equal out. The prime distinction between the earlier wars and the current one is the treatment we make available once the injured has returned to the States. Our military hospitals are so bad they led to the resignation and firing of the chief administrators. And this administration has a history of so underfunding the VA hospitals that the staff have been forced to stand outside grocery stores, begging for donations from the general public.

Sent by David Child | 3:44 PM | 8-23-2007

It seems that Bush wants to claim positive outcomes of previously misguided wars as "results of", instead of "in spite of" American intervention.

Vietnam was supposed to fall like dominoes to communism if Vietnam became communist. That was to jeopardize America and its way of life if that happened. So to keep that from happening the leaders spied on its own citizens, forced it's children into servitude, and circumvented the checks and balance system used to secure American values. Don???t seem to add up now does it?

Dwight from cleveland
Logicanandpolitics.blogspot.com

Sent by Dwight | 3:44 PM | 8-23-2007

Having a discussion about Iraq and Vietnam with a military man and a guy from the Hoover Institute is like comparing the pros and cons of smoking with the president of phillip morris and the president of RJ reynolds.

Sent by dave gioia | 3:57 PM | 8-23-2007

Your selection of experts limited the discussion in important ways. They built many of their comparisons and conclusions from inaccurate assessments of past events that have no parallels in Iraq. The Iraq intervention will not lead to a result in any way similar to what happened, for example, in Japan after World War II. Japan was and is different than Iraq. Further, the occupations were designed and implemented in fundamentally different ways. The assertion made by one of the invited experts that observers predicted disaster for Japan, destroyed as it was by war, in 1945 demonstrated a serious lack of historical sense. Bush's speech deserves more critical analysis.

Sent by Daniel Lewis | 3:58 PM | 8-23-2007

President Bush's comparison of the U.S. wars in VietNam and Iraq might be better analysed if NPR didn't "contrast" the views of a former U.S Army General with a representative from the Hoover Institution.

Sent by Glenn Reeder | 3:58 PM | 8-23-2007

This is insulting the only valid difference I've read is that Iraq has a civil war. The similarities are glaring and tragic. We are involved in a war with American men dieing for a mistake. The gulf of Tonkin never happened, WMDs are not in Iraq. The Vietnamese died by the thousands in a popular revolt, the Iraq people have a sustained opposition to U.S. occupation. Do you really believe that we can kill hundreds of thousands of people under the grounds that it is a "localized" insurgancy, hell no. If you wiped out one hundred people for a cause, then people would start questioning that cause.

The only thing I see that is similar is that Americas young men are again asked to die for a mistake. I ask god every night why the greatest nation on earth can ask me to die because I believe it is morally right to defend our country, and how my countrymen can justify the continued sacrifice of my brothers in arms, who aren't just numbers or animals, they are church going, college students, who actually have a sense of duty and honor. The best of our youth, yet the country of my birth will waste them on foreign soil because of a mistake, and continue to support that powers that placed them there. When I die, am maimed, or damaged by the War in Iraq, what will my country say? It lost a soldier, not a human, not a honor roll Mathematician, newly married, and who loved the people in his community enough to enlist so another would not have to.

And to hear a South Vietnamese national say we betrayed them! My god, we left 500,000 young men on his countries shores. We lost a small city of young men who could be here today contributing to our society in ways unimaginable. His countrymen, the 2 million + (depending on the figure) who betrayed his country. YOU DON'T SACRIFICE 2 million PEOPLE IN A INSURGANCY, THAT IS A UPRISING. This is not including the wounded, which of course is vastly larger.

Hopefully I survive this. I walk college campus surrounded by privledged kids who think I'm nuts for joining the army, who believe that the only sacrifice they have to make for the war is voting Republican, this is not the America I believe in, this is not the America that my forefathers fought for. And to revise the Vietnam war as anything, but a egregious mistake that America should learn from and NEVER EVER MAKE AGAIN, is the most ludicrous thing any person has ever said. It's a insult to the veterans. God help my generation, and someday, we will be in power.

Sent by Chris Alexander | 4:23 PM | 8-23-2007

Here is another reason Bush's comparison of the two wars is flawed. Iraq was stable and we destabilized it. The Vietnam War did not start with American involvement. It started with the French bombing in 1946 of a port in North Vietnam. After nearly 30 years of fighting in Vietnam, there was not a stable South Vietnamese government that could defend itself against the Communist North Vietnamese. So, if we extend Bush's analogy to the true length of the Vietnam War, then Bush should be telling the VFW members, and the rest of the nation, that an additional 25 years will not be enough. Additionally, does that mean that Nixon and the GOP are the party that chooses to cut and run? With Bush's logical, we should still be in Vietnam, which would require that the draft still be in place. Perhaps Bush will propose that we reinstate the draft so that there will be enough American soldiers that the Iraq war never has to end. Bush's analysis is as flawed as his service record during the Vietnam War.

Sent by Jim Ellis | 5:26 PM | 8-23-2007

WHO really knocked over the Cambodian domino?
WAS it our withdrawal from Vietnam (1975 - Ford Admin)?
OR WAS it U.S. attacks on targets inside Cambodian territory (1966 ??? Johnson Admin).
OR WAS it the massive and secret U.S. B-52 bombing raids into Cambodia (1969 - Nixon Admin),
OR WAS it the U.S. military invasion of Cambodian border lands (1970 - Nixon), that upset a delicate political coalition ruling Cambodia.
1970 (Nixon) - INTENSIFIED Cambodian Communist guerrilla activity led to the deposition of the coalition head of state "Prince" Norodom Sihanouk by the anti-Communist Gen Lon Nol.
1973 (Nixon) - U.S. AND South Vietnam sign cease-fire with North Vietnam and Viet Cong.
1974 (Nixon/ Ford) ??? NIXON resigns over Watergate break-in.
1975 (Ford) - THE Cambodian Communists Khmer Rouge gained control of Cambodia forcing Gen Lon Nol and his forces to flee.
"PRINCE" Norodom Sihanouk would again temporarily become head of state only to resign in 1976 (Ford) (replaced by someone named Khieu Samphan).
1975 (Ford) ??? THE U.S. evacuated troops, civilians, and refugees and the South Vietnam government surrenders to the Communist Viet Cong and North Vietnamese.
1975 (Ford) ??? THE Communist Pathet Lao takes control of Laos.
1976 (Ford) - CAMBODIA renamed itself Kampuchea.
1977 (Carter Admin) - POL POT became the leader of the Cambodian Communist Party and head of the Cambodian government.
SOON after the ascension to power of Pol Pot the "Killing Fields" genocide begins in Cambodia.
ALSO in 1977 (Carter) - THE Thai military seized control of Thailand and fighting breaks out along the Cambodian border between Thai and Cambodian troops.
IN 1979 (Carter) - VIETNAMESE Communist military forces seized the capital of Cambodia in order to oust the Pol Pot Communist regime in Phnom Penh.
THE Vietnamese military invasion brought an end to the "Killing Field" genocide.
THOUSANDS of Cambodians fled to Thailand.
PLEASE let me know if I made any significant mistakes.
I AM not an historian!

Sent by Ben Andrews | 8:52 PM | 8-23-2007

Why does NPR continue to put these guests on the air???

How about a guest who opposes war on principal? What is NPR so afraid of?
Is it controlled by the State Department?

NPR chooses to be a force that will insure wars will always continue unless it changes its ways.

Sent by Chris | 12:01 AM | 8-24-2007

It is beyond insufferable that the most notorious chicken hawk of the Vietnam War should lecture veterans about how we should have continued sacrificing our soldiers, Marines and airmen there. However distorted Bush's rendition of history, one thing is certain: Bush and Cheney would have done anything to avoid fighting for their country. Paul Begala had it right: At the VFW meeting, Bush was a coward among heroes.

Sent by Glenn Becker | 2:08 AM | 8-24-2007

MANY others have commented on the similar negative qualities of both of the "two most costly mistakes" ever in American foreign policy.
ALONG with these other notorious similarities the Vietnam War and the Iraq War also share the infamy of being the 2 greatest strategic foreign policy blunders in American History.
THE U.S. spent billions (with a 'b') dollars on both the Vietnam and Iraq Wars.
THE Soviet Union spent millions (with an 'm') on military and other aid to the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong.
SIMILARLY Al Qaeda (or whoever else this "proxy war" is theoretically aimed at) has spent considerably less than the U.S. government (if they have spent anything).
OTHER kibitzers such as Iran, Syria, et cetera have spent very little to generate a lot of trouble for the U.S.
WE STILL won the "Cold War" but not because all of our leaders were smarter and more competent.
INDEED the KGB kicked the CIA's butt regularly.
THE CIA and the FBI had no clue about the moles (like Robert Hansen) in their midst.
WE WON because in the late 1940's at the very beginning of the "Cold War" we adopted the correct long-term strategy of "Containment" through economic and diplomatic efforts rather than direct military confrontation with the Soviet Union or its proxies.
WE FOUGHT militarily only when there was no other alternative (such as in Korea at the beginning of the 1950's)
WE FOLLOWED that policy with few deviations (the Vietnam War being that most egregious of exceptions - a "war of choice").
THE Soviet Union finally fell apart when besieged by many economic disasters such as oil per barrel prices dropping to one of the lowest inflation adjusted levels in modern history.
WHEN they invaded Afghanistan the Soviet Union committed the very same type of mistake (a "war of choice") as our Vietnam folly.
SO EVEN if we can't learn lessons from our own mistakes (because we still can't admit that we made them) at least we ought to learn lessons from another superpower's mistakes (even a has-been superpower that might still be one again).
THE lesson that we should have learned is "Never get in a fight with a country that has a lot less to lose than%2pyou do!"

Sent by Ben Andrews | 2:23 AM | 8-24-2007

A RELEVANT digression:
TO THOSE of you that think that the late President Ronald Reagan won the "Cold War" single-handedly, let me remind you that our success in the "Cold War was due to an overwhelming degree to the strategic policy of "Containment" (developed by George Kennan and other advisors to President Truman).
THE main thrust of the "Containment" strategy was to put economic and diplomatic roadblocks in the way of Soviet expansion while staying out of a major military confrontation.
WE WOULD strenuously try to avoid any nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union (that could end civilization).
(YOU can't win the "Cold War" if your civilization doesn't exist anymore.)
WE WOULD try to avoid the ruinous expense of a conventional war of attrition especially in Asia.
EVEN though we had no choice in 1950 Korea, we still could have learned this lesson from that war.
IN FACT the U.S. military virtually adopted a "no land wars in Asia" policy in reaction to the aftermath of the Korean War.
AFTER seeing the French military's exhaustion and ultimate failure in the Indo-China War in 1954 the U.S. military also initially had an informal policy against "wars of attrition" (conventional, guerrilla, or asymmetrical wars with a fully mobilized population).
IMPORTANT lessons that were almost, but not quite learned.
IT'S "truly true" that if you don't learn from your mistakes (history), then you are doomed to repeat them.
NEXT we need to remember that it was Jimmy Carter who reversed the Nixon/Ford policy of "D??tente" with the Soviet Union.
PRESIDENT Jimmy Carter dramatically increased the U.S. military budget (in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan).
CARTER focused world attention on the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan through our "1980 Olympic Boycott".
CARTER also tightened up energy efficiency regulations (auto manufacturer CAF?? standards) and initiated energy saving programs during the late 1970's.
THESE energy saving actions ultimately helped drive down the price of oil in the 1980's to ruinous levels for the Soviet Union's export industry.
Carter also kept us out of a ruinous Middle-east war during the "Iran Hostage crisis" in keeping with the policy of "Containment".
ANY credit given to Ronald Reagan for the fall of the Soviet Union should be at least doubled for Carter.
Ronald Reagan, and George Bush Sr. also followed the policy of "Containment".
In fact if we had limited our military actions in response to "9/11" to our actions in Afghanistan "Containment" would still be our de facto foreign policy strategy.

Sent by Ben Andrews | 2:42 AM | 8-24-2007

THE Bush Administration's attempt to rewrite the history of Vietnam to make it look as if the only thing that caused "the killing fields" of Cambodia was the U.S. pullout from Vietnam is a political maneuver that has Karl Rove's fingerprints all over it.
ONE of the "fingerprints" is that Tony Blankly (Editorial page editor Washington Times, and McLaughlin Group regular panelist) floated a trial balloon for this Bush administration sophistry on a recent McLaughlin Group broadcast.
THE point of this new Vietnam War mythology is not only to keep the Republican "base" in a blood fever, but also to advance a calculated perversion of history that will focus blame on the next Democratic President and/or on the next Democratic Presidential nominee for all of the humanitarian consequences after the U.S. begins its exit from Iraq.
IT MIGHT work!
"MY DADDY used to say '"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and you can fool all the people some of the time, and them's pretty good odds'"!" - (Bret Maverick {actor James Garner}, a cowboy poker player and hero of the 1950's TV western, "Maverick")
THEN Karl's probably going to gin up the old "we was stabbed in the back" story (which has a pretty infamous pedigree including Adolf Hitler's book "Mein Kampf").
ROVE may have some "swift boater" general assert that the Democrats prevented a military victory in Iraq just like they did in Vietnam.
NOW we know the reason why this administration spent so little time on an exit strategy for Iraq -- Karl Rove already had one.
HIS plan is this: WHEN the voter's elect a Democratic President to get us out of Iraq, the Republican's can blame the Democrats for all of the diplomatic and economic fall-out plus any and all the humanitarian calamities that happen anywhere in the Middle-East during and after the U.S. exit.
THE Democrats will have a one-term presidency because of all of the problems that the Bush Administration created (and the other problems they neglected), and then the Republicans will be back in business.
THE "surge" blends beautifully into this scenario because it may allow the Bush Admin to avoid withdrawing any troops at all during George Bush's complete Presidential term.
IF BUSH is not in office at the time of our exit from Iraq then he can plausibly assert that he did not lose the Iraq War his successor did.
ALL Bush needs to do is to keep a lid on the brewing Iraq civil war (and other assorted humanitarian emergencies) in and around Iraq.
THEN when the new Democratic President starts to withdraw troops Iraq explodes into genocidal chaos and other religious and ethnic group pathologies.

Sent by Ben Andrews | 1:32 PM | 8-24-2007

Bush is sounding like Lyndon Johnson more and more. You might be interested in an article I did titled, Long Day???s Journey Into Night: The Dark Parallels Between Khe Sanh and Iraq

Sent by Ralph Brauer | 11:33 PM | 8-24-2007

Missing in the discussion was a serious discussion of troop levels. The US had over half a million troops in Veitnam at peak. If we were willing to make the same sort of national commitment to Iraq, I imagine the situation would be quite different. Bush's assertion that we are in a fight for our way of life and his "surge" that barely bolstered troop strength by 10% are severely at odds.

Sent by Jesse C | 4:30 PM | 8-26-2007

LEAVING aside for the moment the question of what good it would do, HOW could we ever reach the peak Vietnam troop levels in Iraq?
THE first big signal that our army is broken was the prison torture scandal.
THINGS have only gotten worse since then.
WE NEED quickly draw down troop levels!
WE NEED to get out of Iraq yesterday!
THAT Bush makes one more inconsistent or contradictory statement is not surprising.
EVERYTHING this administration has said and done with regard to Iraq has been inconsistent or contradictory or simply incoherent, but always consistently incompetent.

Sent by Ben Andrews | 9:15 PM | 8-29-2007

Comment from "No One Gets Left Behind" "Blog of the Nation" by "Rich" at http://www.npr.org/blogs/talk/2007/08/no_one_gets_left_behind_1.html#commentSection
Rich said: "I beileve a very important difference between the military and the fire service was overlooked in your discussion. I'm a fire captain with 20 years of experience in the fire service. When a firefighter goes down in a burning building his brother and sister firefighters will do every thing they can to get him or her out alive but ultimately the commander of the fire incident must make to the call as to when a rescue is impossible and sending resucue crews into the building will be sacrificing lives needlessly. This command order for all recuse crews to evacuate the building may come when trapped firefighters are stilll alive. This is an excrutiating decision I hope I as a company officer never have to make. However, if I ever have to make that call I will. We, in the fire service are paid to risk our lives and on rare occasions to give our lives but never to throw our lives away. If the order is given to pull out of the structure we will. We will suffer, we will grieve and when it's safe, we will be allowed to return for our dead. The difference between we in the fire service and those brave men and women in the military is we will not be ordered to or permitted to sacrifice our lives for others, certain to die or for body recovery."-------------------------------------------------------------------

"Sent by Rich | 3:51 PM ET | 08-29-2007"
I thought Rich's comment was worth repeating on this webpage.

Sent by (Ben Andrews) | 9:26 PM | 8-29-2007