We are the new media.
 | |  | |  | |  | |  |
By David Rogers
February 2, 2005
The New Editor
As I listened last week to the endless repetition of Ted Kennedy’s dreary mantra that "Iraq is
George Bush’s Vietnam," it occurred to me that Ted was right. Iraq is Vietnam. But George
W. Bush, to paraphrase another old Democratic senator, is no John F. Kennedy. Nor is W.
LBJ or Richard Nixon. And that makes a critical difference.
There are, of course, other differences between Vietnam and Iraq.
But there are striking, if superficial, similarities which have no doubt inspired the senior
Massachusetts senator. Like Vietnam, Iraq is bordered by hostile nations that are willing and
able to resupply rebel forces, providing weapons and personnel for an ongoing guerilla
campaign against the Americans. Like the Viet Cong in Vietnam, the rebels in Iraq are led by
scruffy ideologues determined to impose totalitarian rule over millions.
But there are critical differences as well. Iran and Syria have nowhere near the available
resources to resupply the Iraqi rebels that the Soviet Union and Communist China had. The
Cold War adversaries had nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles. The
Iranians are in pursuit of both, but have neither. Likewise, the Syrian and Iranian Navy
combined are less than a match for the Massachusetts Coast Guard, and their Air Forces –
well, let’s be charitable and just say they aren’t in the major leagues.
The times are different. Vietnam began with a tentative commitment of advisors by
Eisenhower, who followed the Truman Administration’s carnage without victory in Korea.
The current Iraq war follows victory – Reagan’s victory in the Cold War that freed a quarter
of humanity, President Bush (41)’s victory in Desert Storm that liberated Kuwait, President
Clinton’s victory in Serbia, and W.’s victory in Afghanistan. And Americans are no longer
shocked, surprised and demoralized by demonstrating children led by communist
sympathizers like International A.N.S.W.E.R. or by a hostile and sometimes genuinely anti-
American news media.
And Saddam Hussein and Abu Musad al-Zarqawi are no General Vo Nguyen Giap and Ho Chi
Minh.
We should not underestimate, either, the importance of the increased technological
sophistication of American troops, and the vastly superior training and morale of America’s
volunteer force of today in comparison to the conscripts of the Vietnam era.
But the critical differences between Iraq and Vietnam -- and between the results then and
now -- are in American leadership.
The differences are almost impossible to overstate. In Vietnam, American engagement with
the enemy was tentative, slow, and weak. It took almost a decade from the time the first
Americans landed in Vietnam before they reached the number of troops in Iraq within a
month of the commencement of hostilities.
JFK, preoccupied by his failures in Berlin and Cuba, failed to engage the enemy. LBJ,
paralyzed by politics, failed to allow the military to run the war. Nixon’s attempt to withdraw
"with honor" failed because of sabotage by a liberal Democratic Congress unwilling to allow
America to fulfill its treaty commitment to defend and supply South Vietnam from North
Vietnamese regular army attack.
In contrast, George W. Bush committed large forces immediately -- and engaged the enemy
early and decisively, with bombing of the enemy headquarters first. (In contrast, LBJ, the
third president to face the North Vietnamese communist enemy, was the first to bomb them
-- more than a five years after American action began and almost a year after he became
president.) Now, less than two years after the first American troops engaged, successful free
Iraqi elections mark the end of the beginning.
Teddy Kennedy claims to have learned the lesson of Vietnam, and his words and actions
indicate that the lessons he learned are: America will lose, America is evil, America will
always make things worse by its actions, American servicemen and women will die for no
good reason, and America should surrender first, and ask questions later.
George W. Bush has apparently learned different lessons. America can win if led by men of
determination. America can win if civilian leadership makes the large strategic decisions and
leaves the tactics to the professional military men. America can win if, after destroying its
enemies, it reaches out to neutrals and friendlies and encourages democracy and freedom to
take hold. And America should -- and can -- make the enemy surrender.
President John F. Kennedy famously said that America would "bear any burden" and "oppose
any foe" in order to make men free. He would be proud.
America can win. Even in Vietnam.
David Rogers is a contributing editor for The New Editor.
Paul Geary
David Rogers