[richlevy]

Originally posted by Undertoad
Likeks today writes straight at tw:

Where did that quote come from? I'd like to read the article/thread.

There is the bare thread of a half-truth in the statement that Iraq is not like Vietnam.

In Vietnam you had thick vegetation and insufficient technology to penetrate it. In Iraq, except for canyons and caves, the landscape does not provide the same kind of cover. There will probably not be the equivalent of the HO CHI MINH TRAIL , although a lot of smuggling does take place.

In Vietnam you had a hostile nation backed by a superpower as the aggressor. In Iraq no nation is visibly backing the insurgents.

And now for the bad news.

In Iraq you have three major competing ethnic groups, two of which were the oppressed under the Sunni leadership. At this point elements of the Sunnis and the Shiites are both fighting US troops, and possibly even cooperating at some level.

I'm trying to find another recent example in history when peacekeepers or occupying forces came under fire from two competing groups. I would guess theBalkans , but I don't remember any large-scale resistant from any two of the sides at the same time. Even in Nothern Ireland, I don't remember ever hearing the Nationalists and Unionists (Catholics and Protestants) getting together and coordinating an uprising against the British.

When members of two opposing sides stop shooting at each other and shooting at us, it means trouble.

Destroying Saddam Husseins regime in Iraq left a very large power vacuum, and everyone is trying to fill it at once. Peacekeeping is not having as much of an effect because most of the world ties the efforts in Iraq to US-George W. Bush prestige (or face-saving). The overwhelming majority of the troops in Iraq are US. We have alienated our potential allies to the point where noone wants to sign on and commit their sons and daughters to pull GWB's fat out of the fire. The chances of a UNPROFOR mission in Iraq while Bush is in office are slim at best.

That being said, we cannot withdraw from Iraq and leave another mess like Afghanistan in place to become another terrorist recruiting office, training ground, and supply depot. We are stuck there, and the new terrorism directed against our allies, who have much less of a will to be there since no WMD's were ever found and the official justification for the war changed, might serve to isolate us further.

The hawks now want to change the mission from nation-building to pacification. Doing so will play into the hands of the terrorists who do not want a stable government in place, and who would probably hope to see some sort of theocracy develop. Of course the Sunnis and Shiites will be back at each others throats as soon as they deal with us. For now, they appear happy to join forces. I guess GWB really is a uniter after all.