Iraq is No Viet Nam

Iraq is No Viet Nam
by Ken Taylor - Senior Writer
1/28/07


"Bringing back memories of Vietnam, " or , " Iraq has become a quagmire like Vietnam, " or, " just as in Vietnam, " or this famous misleading quote from Senator Ted Kennedy, "Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam." I heard the news reports from Saturday's protests against our presence in Iraq until the comparisons of Iraq and Vietnam made me sick to my stomach. 60's throwback icons like Susan Sarandon, and, "Hanoi, " Jane Fonda were among the , "celebrities, " who spoke at the Washington Mall. Now that a new generation is listening to politics , "Hanoi Jane, " has decided to come out of the anti-war closet thinking that the newbies have not heard of her traitorous acts during Vietnam when she visited the North Vietnamese stating that our troops were war criminals and then at the , "Hanoi Hilton," an infamous POW prison in Hanoi the capitol of North Vietnam attempted to coax our soldiers into admitting their, "war crimes, " against North Vietnam. Well Ms. Fonda we do remember and we still hold you accountable for your acts and still consider you a traitor.

Accounts of the protests range from a few thousand to over 100 thousand, the latter estimated by the organizers of the protest but denied by Mall park police. This is the first misconception as a Vietnam comparison. The protest of the 60's were many times extremely violent and when they met at the Mall the numbers were in the hundreds of thousands. Many of those who protest today are left overs who still live in the 60's and jump on any, "anti," band wagon to bring back old times. The , "Hey, Hey, Ho, Hoers, " and the rhymers were in abundance. While there is opposition to Iraq it is small in comparison to Vietnam
The only true comparison of Iraq and Vietnam is the way it is being used as a political tool and that the Democrats are threatening to defund the war or restate the use of force authorization issued in 2001 in order to tie the President's hands and leave the troops abandoned as was done near the end of Vietnam.

Unlike Vietnam US loses are minimal in comparison. Combat deaths in Vietnam range from a low figure of 57, 605 to a high figure of 58, 159, with the number on the Vietnam War Memorial at 58, 178. Iraq combat deaths as of January 27th are at 3, 079. The Iraq invasion was in March of 2003 which equates to 46 months in theatre and an average of 67 American loses per month. United States combat involvement in Vietnam lasted nearly ten years with a peak total of 553, 000 troops in 1969. The peak years of combat were from 1964 - 1971 with total combat loses of 56, 009 during the eight year period. This is an average of 7002 American loses per year, which is a far cry from the totals of Iraq. While every soldier lost is a tragedy especially for their loved ones the distortion by the media and the left with continual body counts and Vietnam comparisons is ridiculous.

Unlike Vietnam we are fighting an enemy that attacked us. Many on the left try to spin that Iraq is not part of the global war against terrorism but the evidence and the truth shows otherwise. While Iraq was not directly involved with 9/11, documents are numerous showing Hussein's support financially to Al Qaeda and many forget the terrorist training camps especially that which contained an aircraft fuselage used for teaching the most effective way to hijack a plane. Also forgotten were the murals showing planes hitting the twin towers with Iraqi symbols on the planes. Additionally there are continual reports of battles against Al Qaeda in Iraq and the call by their leaders to their loyalists to continue the fight with the US in Iraq.

Where Iraq has similarities to Vietnam lies in the continual media bias against the war and the use of their influence to shape American opinion and feelings about the war. As in Vietnam every news account makes mention of a body count not as a memoriam to those who have sacrificed but as a tool to turn the country against the war. And as in Vietnam this tactic is working. The other similarity is the political use of the war to push an agenda. Democrats are using Iraq to hammer at the President and in so are assisting the media in turning the nation against the war. Political badgering played a pivotal role in turning America against Vietnam and it is doing the same today.

The President mentioned at the end of the State of the Union Address that, "our cause in the world is right." While most in retrospect see little justification to Vietnam the goals and accomplishments in Iraq are just and necessary. While many on the left claim otherwise in their political use of the war, our troops have brought freedom from a tyrannical regime to more than 50 million people. We have eliminated a threat to the world through the distribution of weaponry both conventional and WMD that were being and would have been used by Islamic radicals in their Jihad against the United States. Victory in Iraq brings with it a free ally, a stability through Democracy in the region, the elimination of a harbor of terrorism and a country who terrorist would use as a base of operations. It also brings with it a weaker Iran as a free nation will be at Iran's border showing the people of that Islamic terror state what freedom is and that they too can have a country free of the Islamic radical influence.