Iraq & Vietnam: Comparison & Contrast

Iraq & Vietnam: A comparison and contrast
Kirkland Young
HUMN 410
Professor Harris
11/17/09

Introduction Many pundits who opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq now compare it to the invasion of Vietnam by viewing the daily attacks on U.S. soldiers as indications of repeating mistakes that were made in Vietnam. In their view, “the United States has yet again stumbled into a foreign quagmire – a protracted and indecisive political and military struggle from which they are not likely to remove themselves without considerable loss of life and currency.” (Terrill, p. 1) However, profound differences separate the domestic and international objectives of the Vietnam and Iraq wars even though there are many similarities these similarities can be misleading. The Vietnam War was over the spread of communism in the Indochina region of the world. The French and the Japanese had been thoroughly conquered by the Vietnamese led by a Ho Chi Minh who had an overwhelming amount of support from his compatriots. In 1954 the president of the U.S.A. attempted to divide the country of Vietnam into two opposing governments. Selecting a former Vietnamese official named Ngo Dinh Diem and planting him in South Vietnam to oppose the elections that would unite the country. This was done because an intelligence estimate showed that the election would be won by Ho Chi Minh and thus would give “control of the associated states (Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam) in the region – the three parts of Indochina created by the Geneva Conference to Communist government control.” (Zinn, p. 472) President Eisenhower and the U.S. Government believed that if one country became communist then the surrounding countries would also become communist and this belief became known as the Domino Theory. JFK adopted this theory and kept the policies of former presidents Eisenhower and Truman concerning the Indochina region of the world. The Iraq War was launched by President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair in March 2003 to “disarm Saddam Hussein and Iraq of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), end Iraq’s support for terrorism, and free the Iraqi people from Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship. However, no WMD were ever found, no links to international terrorism were uprooted, and economic agendas have been officially denied. The enemy in Iraq operates in small independent cells that rely on improvised explosive devices and suicide-bomb attempts to inflict casualties instead of conventional organized military units.
Similarities
Many Americans might consider the daily attacks on U.S. soldiers in Iraq as a sign of making some of the same mistakes that were made in Vietnam. Nothing could be farther from the truth even with both wars having many similarities the different aspects far outweigh the similar aspects in terms of profound effect on society. Both wars were launched by presidents that lied to the public using information that was considered “credibility gaps” during Vietnam and acceptable “information warfare” during Iraq. Both wars had severe cases of prisoner abuse; in Vietnam thousands of captured Vietnamese were tortured inside cells that were called tiger cages; in Iraq hundreds of Iraqis were punched or kneed, deprived of sleep, and handcuffed standing up. Both wars had illegal weapons launched/deployed; in Vietnam napalm and Agent Orange were dropped on Vietnamese civilians; in Iraq cluster bombs and Mark 77 napalm-like firebombs were dropped on Iraqis civilians. Additionally, uranium was added to the arsenal of prohibited weapons that were used in Iraq. Both wars were supposedly based on noble international goals, but an imperial drive to control resources turned out to be the actual purpose of occupying each country. The resources commandeered in Vietnam were rubber, coal, rice, manganese, and iron ore; Iraq had oil. In both wars the U.S. president claimed to be promoting democracy. During the Vietnam War elections were staged but because the U.S. government did not want the Vietnamese to elect Ho Chi Minh as their president, again and again the election process was blocked by the U.S. and their puppet leader Ngo Dinh Diem whom they brought from New Jersey and planted in South Vietnam in hopes of him winning the election to establish an American-like government. In the Iraq War with the support of the United Kingdom the U. S. president and government used American money to place another person into political office: Ayad Allawi. Who was residing in exile for almost 30 years before being plucked out of exile and sent to Iraq to be the Prime Minister of the country after the 2003 invasion of Iraq forced Saddam Hussein to step down from the position. Since then Iraq has held one election and most voters say they were casting ballots to get the U.S. and U.K. to leave.
Differences
One of the most striking dissimilarities between Vietnam and Iraq is the level of training, discipline, and quality of equipment possessed by the enemy. In Vietnam, U.S. soldiers faced nearly a 1.1 million well trained, disciplined and well equipped Vietnamese soldiers. The NVA (North Vietnamese Army) and VC (Viet Cong) were highly educated in the ways of the communistic form of government, received direct aid from China and the Soviet Union, and had logistical support from neighboring countries. In Iraq the Iraqi military was isolated from their neighbors, did not have the support of their allies, were not well trained, and lack organized conventional military unit organization. Due to unorganization enemy combatants in Iraq consisted of several different groups of well-armed radicals who were not united to achieve a common cause. Another difference was the nature of the insurgent warfare that was carried out in Vietnam and Iraq. In Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh waged a centrally directed Mao Tse Tung model of insurgency that culminated into a conventional military victory. Unlike, Saddam Hussein, Ho Chi Minh had a clear and well publicized political, social, and economic agenda that was supported by many countries from around the world due to many civil rights movements that were occurring at the time. In Iraq, combat took place on a much smaller scale. Conventional warfare was replaced with assassinations, car bombings, and ambushes overt fighting did not happen on the same scale as it did in Vietnam. Also, the Vietnamese did not collaborate with U.S. forces as the Iraqis did in Operation Iraqi Freedom. U.S. war aims and military freedom of action were much more limited in Vietnam than in Iraq. During the Vietnam War the U.S. was not the only world superpower and thus was not able to drop atomic bombs as they did in Iwo Jima and Nagasaki they had the Soviet Union and China to contend with if they decided to become technologically ruthless. Additionally, the U.S. sought to usurp the unification of the Vietnam country by alleging to be defending the southern half of the country from the northern half. However, at the end of the war the entire country wanted to be communist under the leadership of their hero Ho Chi Minh and as a result the U.S. agenda and objectives were conquered. Lastly, the U.S. casualty rate and the duration of the war were significantly different in Vietnam compared to Iraq. The Vietnam War lasted over eight years and resulted in 58,209 U.S. soldiers killed in action and 303,635 wounded due to military operations. In Iraq, military resistance lasted only three weeks and resulted in only 4,345 U.S. soldiers killed in action and only 31,102 wounded due to military operations. (Wikipedia, p. 2) In closing I feel that both wars were the result of special interest groups whom had overseas investments tied into Vietnam and Iraq. That the president was satisfying campaign promises and thus lied to the public in order to carry out his hidden agenda that was placed under the cloak of spreading democracy. Though civilian American citizens did not colonized/occupy Vietnam or Iraq I think that the military presence placed in Iraq is a symbol of imperialism because there is not a set plan for withdrawing troops from Iraq and U.S. policy is set to control Iraq politically and economically. Thus, I feel that a pseudo-democracy has been setup in Iraq to pacify the American public and send billions of dollars to defense spending in which the Bush family and Saudi Arabia has major investments.

Works Cited: 1. Record, J., & Terrill, W.A., (2004, May). Iraq and Vietnam: Differences, Similarities, and Insights. Retrieved November 10, 2009, from Small Wars Journal.com Web site: http://smallwarsjournal.com/documents/record1.pdf

2. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, (2009, November). Vietnam War Casualties. Retrieved November 19, 2009, from Wikipedia.org Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_casualties

3. Zinn, H. (2003). A People’s History of the United States: 1492 – Present. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.

4. North, O., (2006, October). Vietnam and Iraq: Myth vs. Reality. Retrieved November 18, 2009, from Fox News.com Web site: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,225911,00.html