At 30: Iraq and the Vietnam Syndrome

By Greg Mitchell, Editor & Publisher. Posted May 2, 2005.

The flood of stories in the press marking the 30th anniversary of the fall of Saigon is near its end (the anniversary having passed on Saturday). There have been articles lamenting that we ever set foot in Indochina, others claiming that we could and should have won the war, and every view in between.

Then there's Jonah Goldberg's Op-Ed in USA Today. He used the occasion not to try to come to grips with that war but denounce those -- mainly, he said, "liberal baby boomers" -- who on a "near-daily" basis link Iraq to Vietnam. He said they are simply filled with "nostalgia" for their glory days of antiwar hedonism.

Attempting to bolster this argument, Goldberg charged the boomers aren't even in touch with the facts: namely, the Vietnam war wasn't among the most unpopular in our history. His one piece of evidence: someone named Sol Tax of the University of Chicago who apparently claimed, in a 1968 study, that Vietnam ranked as only "the fourth or seventh least-popular war in American history."

Ignore for a moment the imprecision (fourth or seventh?) and consider when this ranking took place: 1968, well before most of the country turned against the war. I realize that Goldberg is a youngish man, but really, he should know his Vietnam history a little better. Then again, he didn't live through the conflict (as baby boomers did).

Then there's Goldberg's dubious claim that "in Vietnam, the insurgency phase of the war was largely over by 1965." Goodbye, "Charlie"!

With that taken care of, Goldberg described the ways that Iraq is "completely different from Vietnam in almost every major respect." He mentioned the differences between a "jungle war" and a "desert war." Also, "the technologies" are "incomparable." And let's not forget: the "terrain," the "ideologies," not to mention "the cultures." The Cold War vs. The War on Terror. The casualty rates.

Of course, this is all one big "Duh," the knocking down of overstuffed straw men. No one I know, when they make any firm or loose connection between Iraq and Vietnam, mentions anything on Goldberg's list, for good reason. But this Goldberg variation is necessary. He needs to highlight the no-brainers to avoid the profound ways in which the wars are similar.

Let's start with: the nation's leaders lying to the American people to gain our involvement in the two wars. Don't take my word for it. Gallup found this week that half of all Americans now say that President Bush deliberately misled them on WMDs.

Then, how about, watching the war drag on, month after month, with "pacification" said to be right around the corner (two or three times a year). We just came out of such a "turning point," only to be told by General Richard Myers last week that the insurgency was as strong as ever, followed by a massive upsurge in attacks in the past few days.

Greg Mitchell (gmitchell@editorandpublisher.com) is editor of E&P and author of seven books of history and politics.

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