Comparing Iraq to Vietnam
 

I think there is a need for a thread like this. I'm going to abstain from post other than this initial kick-starter, because my blood pressure tends to shoot up when discussing this particular topic.

There will be no draft for any Iraqi campaign. Unless a democrat wins the office, which shouldn't happen this term. It is idiotic to compare a war with a casuality list inumbering at around 200 a week with a list of 767. Total. And the "conflict" is ending.

That's my only argument. As I said, it's a kick-starter because you guys are just so damn cute when you're angry.

Well I was comparing the cultural similarities. They both don't give up, know their environment very well, and have some extreme people who do not like America except for target practice.

Anyway, I think the whole thing is a big shit sandwich and we all have to take a bite.

Iraq is not Vietnam. I don't like the situation, but its not Vietnam. In Vietnam we had guerrillas AND a well-armed nations fighting us. In Iraq there are only pockets of annoying guerrilla resistance. The death rate is lower, as are the total deaths. People get all bent out of shape over 750 deaths or so...big deal I say. America lost 300-400 thousand in WWII and I forget how many hundreds of thousands in Vietnam. Whether I supported the war or not, I'm not going to whine about less than a thousand deaths, most of them accidental. Civilain deaths are something else, but we'll discuss that some other time.

Where Iraq CAN be like Vietnam is if we don't support our troops. Don't take it out on the troops guys, they're just doing their job. I just hate it when some guy comes back from a sniper infested, disease ridden sweltering jungle, or a fiery desert littered with fanatics with AK-47's, doing what the government ORDERED him to do and some shit calls him a "baby-killer". Blame the Govt. not the troops. Thats the only thing i see that could be like Vietnam.

I think that alot of people are worried about Iraq becoming another Vietnam (not that it IS one already, that would be an exaggeration of current events), it was allover my dad's VVA talklist that I get on occasion, I wished I had saved some of the email. There was alot of interesting discussion on both sides of the issue. As far as the opinions of some actual Vietnam war vets, alot of them believed that it is the fault of politics and policies that the war became such a mess. And I'm gonna quote my dad's response to that here:
This may not be casualty wise as someone said, comparable to Vietnam. But I feel that things are starting to spin badly for our troops and I'm quickly losing faith in general management of the war, intelligence and foreign affairs to handle this any better than we have done thus far.

casualty list

600,000 dead in the civil war

520,000 dead in WW2

54,000 dead in Korea

57,000 dead in Vietnam

147 dead in gulf war 1

142 dead by the removal of the baathists in gulf war 2. 700 dead total.

That sound right, except for the WWII estimate. Wasn't it around 420k, not 520k, I'm sure I saw that on a chart somewhere...

I think that yer missing my point, it's not so much the casualties so much as HOW we're racking up those numbers, and how the goverment wants to send more troops, and how there doesn't seem to be any end in sight and how mismanagement of this war is already an embarrassment. For example the abuse of iraqi pow's, or maybe the fact that we didn't have all the facts going in and the entire reason for starting this war, ie the search for weapons of mass distruction has turned out to be completely false and the constant alluding to Iraq in regards to the war on terror. I don't think anyone is saying this IS another Vietnam, but the bumbling efforts so far aren't giving me any confidence.

Actually, I'm pretty sure the Civil War casualty number is in the ballpark of 6 million, not 600,000. Hence how they say "Lost more Americans in the Civil War than all other wars combined".

I think our troops are doing great, but I'm not happy with how the "winning-hearts-and-minds" campaign is going. This recent Iraq prisoner thing just makes things worse.

Tell me something... Why is it people immediately take Vietnam and put it together with Iraq? Why not other wars? How about the war of 1812, the Spanish-American war, WWI, the civil war, the korean war, etc? Why immediately vietnam? is it just in everyone's minds right now?

Because there's people alive now, who experienced it first hand. WW2 and Korean war vets are also still alive, but Vietnam was obviously the more bloody of the three. Pyschologically you're more likely to pull emotional reference from something you experienced rather than something you've read about in a text book.