Iraq and Afghanistan is the New Vietnam and Korea
Frightening parallels seem to exist between the two periods. Is it right to call the War in the Middle East a modern version of the War in the Far East?
|
1
point
Disagree. Vietnam and Korea were fought to keep communism (which, I suppose, could have been viewed as 'terrorist' in nature by the Americans) from spreading. Iraq and Afghanistan, as I recall, are being fought as a War on Terrorism. Vietnam and Korea posed no threat to America, whereas al-Qaeda did/does. As you said yourself, communism was the 1950s-80s version of terrorism. Containing the spread of communism was, in most Americans' minds, an essential goal to keep the world safe, happy, and prosperous. Additionally, imagine the wars themselves: In Vietnam, we had the Viet Cong and the Viet Minh. In Iraq we have the Taliban, Al Qaeda and the Insurgents. The insurgents seem most to me like the Viet Cong, whereas the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are like the Viet Minh. At the outset of each war, we had very idealistic, yet murky goals: stopping terrorism (how?) and suppressing communism (how?). We were fighting a guerrilla war in both, where our superior technology, infrastructure, and apparently military, were incapable of dealing knockout blows against the enemy. The wars dragged on for years with admittedly some progress, although it was few, and often temporary. The presidents received nearly full support from Congress (at the onset at least) for each war. Horrible crimes against humanity occurred (Abu Ghraib and the My Lai Massacre). We place incredibly corrupt regimes in the place of those we destroyed (Ngo Diem and Syngman Rhee, and Talabani and Karzai) More parallels? 1
point
My knowledge of conflicts ends at about the Civil War. I could go into endless depth about the history of the Germans from earliest recorded history to the middle ages; could give endless lore on the Romans and Greeks - but when it comes to the last 150 years, I'm virtually stumped. That being said: Vietnam resulted it virtually no progress. There has been tremendous progress in Iraq, as I recall. Don't horrible crimes against humanity occur during every war? For every parallel you find, there will be many other things that don't correlate. 1
point
Korea was not a failure because we stopped the communists from taking over the south. Vietnam we had the right idea but implemented the idea the wrong way. I do not view Iraq and Afghanistan as a failure because we have suffered less casualties than the enemy and in Iraq we protected our interests and in Afghanistan we are slowly winning over the villagers and getting them to help us fight the Taliban. "History doesn't repeat itself, at best it sometimes rhymes." 1
point
|
