Jim Devine wrote:
On 12/21/06, Michael Perelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
How many times did the US apply the surge technique in Vietnam -- there
was always
"light at the end of the tunnel." The joke at the time was that it was
an oncoming
locomotive.
the escalations in VN weren't the same. They involved "permanent"
increases in US troop levels, not transitory ones. The US can't do
permanent increases anymore, without bringing back the draft. Even a
transitory surge threatens to break the US army and marine corps.
==========================
The other big difference, of course, with Vietnam is that Iraqi society is
divided between Shias, Sunnis, and Kurds, each pursuing their own agendas -
for the most part under sectarian religious and nationalist leaderships. The
mainly Sunni armed resistance is much narrower, ideologically weaker, and
more organizationally fragmented than was the socialist-led NLF in Vietnam,
and the occupation rests on a larger, albeit often uncertain and grudging,
base of support in the majority Shia and Kurdish communities.
These parochial divisions, which the occupation has both exacerbated and
exploited, has allowed the US to remain in Iraq with fewer troops and lower
casualties than in Vietnam, and largely explains the inability of the US
antiwar movement to translate mass sentiment against the war into active
opposition to it. If the Sadrists, in particular, had chosen to move towards
unity with the Sunni militias after the battle of Najaf rather than becoming
part of the Shia-dominated client government established by the occupation
authority, it's doubtful the US would still have forces in the country, much
less be contemplating whether to reinforce them.
