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Hooray! A non-Chomsky source.

Regarding how Iraq is like Vietnam...or not. This source cannot be copy/pasted so, respectfully, I offer a summary and suggest checking out his webpage. I found it an interesting and quick read, though.

Vietnam is considered a "quagmire". Is Iraq becoming a "quagmire"?

He looks at points from the soldier's perspectives and from a political perspective. Whichever side carries more weight for the reader, there can be no doubt that there is reason to suspect a similarity.

koan wrote: Hooray! A non-Chomsky source.



Regarding how Iraq is like Vietnam...or not. This source cannot be copy/pasted so, respectfully, I offer a summary and suggest checking out his webpage. I found it an interesting and quick read, though.



Vietnam is considered a "quagmire". Is Iraq becoming a "quagmire"?

He looks at points from the soldier's perspectives and from a political perspective. Whichever side carries more weight for the reader, there can be no doubt that there is reason to suspect a similarity.
well, i guess what it boils down to for me, unfortunately, is 'so what?'. what do we learn, how is the discussion informed, by saying iraq is like vietnam? it's clearly premature to say that iraq *is* a quagmire - at best people are saying 'it looks like a quagmire' or 'it is becoming a quagmire'.



unfortunately, i see iraq as, simply and sadly, a war. each war is different. i don't think one can say that any two wars are any more or less alike than each other. people die - civilians die, soldiers die. people are wounded. people are crippled, people are maimed. mistakes occur, civilians mistaken for enemy, soldiers shot by their own troops. crimes are committed - a curious concept when a people are engaged in killing each other. in war, it's not murder, it's sanctioned.



i'm having a look at the geneva convention right now. if the US is to be tried for war crimes for invading iraq, then all coalition nations must also be tried as accomplices. that means the following countries must also be tried for their complicity:



Afghanistan

Albania

Australia

Azerbaijan

Bulgaria

Colombia

the Czech Republic

Denmark

El Salvador

Eritrea

Estonia

Ethiopia

Georgia

Hungary

Italy

Japan

South Korea

Latvia

Lithuania

Macedonia

the Netherlands

Nicaragua

the Philippines

Poland

Romania

Slovakia

Spain

Turkey

United Kingdom

Uzbekistan

koan wrote: The US giving itself the sole right to declare war based on suspicion is nothing short of declaring desire for world supremacy.



that's quite a leap, if you ask me.





Now if the other countries of the world justifiably see this action as a declared war on the rest of the world...what should they do? If another country made the same declaration, the US would deem it a declaration of war. again, another huge leap. why haven't we invaded canada? if our desire is world supremacy, why not go for the 'low hanging fruit'? annexing canada would be a cakewalk, we'd have control of all that oil trapped in the athabasca tar sands, and a lot of forest we can clearcut.

i'm being only slightly ironic.

i think part of what rather bugs me about the discussion is that there seems to be a presumption of evil intent on the part of the US. we're this big lumbering bully, trying to control the world. yet, for all the errors we have made and do make, we show no actions remotely resembling wanting world domination and supremacy. where are our ethnic cleansings of other nations? where's our auschwitz? where are our slaves imported from the nations we've conquered?

does america believe it has the moral high-ground in the world? of course. most nations do. but our actions, globally, don't betray an immoral, despotic path. oh, i'm sure there'll be plenty of disagreement - based upon - forgive me - hair splitting. yes indeed, we are not perfect, not by a longshot.



but does a nation bent on world domination and supremacy show up first anywhere in the world when there's a natural disaster that requires intervention on a massive scale? do the people of such a nation immediately pull out their wallets to help?



why would we bother with the pretense of putting on democratic elections in iraq if all we're after is the oil? why wouldn't we just annex iraq, make it a US protectorate, and be done with such sillyness and democracy? why would we kick out the taliban and encourage democracy in afghanistan, likewise? where's the oil in afghanistan, by the way? what resource were we trying to control there?



heck, saudi arabia, where the largest oil reserves exist, would be another cakewalk for us if we wanted. we have the nuclear weapons, no shortage of them at all. why not just vaporize riyadh and take control? if all we're after is the oil, it'd be a heck of a lot easier than being at the mercy of opec's production decisions.



sure, i'm going far to the extreme here. indulge me, as i indulge the rampant anti-american bias encountered at every turn. evil america. selfish america. war criminal america. stupid president. stolen elections. new american century cabal. jfk murdered by the cia. (i actually ran across a website that goes into great detail about how bush senior was the one who had jfk assassinated).



we aren't perfect. however, neither are we evil.

Whether the Iraq war is like Vietnam is only a sidebar conversation to the original concern. I agree, so what?

The US has no need to annex Canada. We pose no threat and, except for not supporting the Iraq war, have a mandate to support the US. The comparison arises for me in questioning the motive that the US may have in making sure that the government that results will be more controllable by the US. If that is the goal the likelihood of the politicians announcing it and going about it brazenly would result in world war. But, if done in subtle ways and successfully, the goal is acquired through bullying and subversive manipulation.

I am not anti-American. To me, the US is like a friend that does really great things but also does really nasty things. I can like it for the really nice things it does but call it a bully when it does the nasty things. Unlike a friend, the US is a conglomeration of people not just a single individual. So it becomes more like a gang. There are many instances where members of a gang do really horrible things because they like their association with the gang. There are sociological studies done on boys that have participated in gangrapes even though they were nauseous at the act as they were performing it. It is the ability of the leader of the gang to manipulate the members of the gang into doing what they know is wrong (and teaching them to justify it) that causes global concern for me when we are talking about a powerful country and not just a group of kids.

koan wrote: Whether the Iraq war is like Vietnam is only a sidebar conversation to the original concern. I agree, so what?



The US has no need to annex Canada. We pose no threat and, except for not supporting the Iraq war, have a mandate to support the US.
okay. but it is widely stated, just as well, that iraq posed no threat. and canada does have vast reserves of natural gas, and the utterly massive reserves of oil in the athabasca tar sands (reserves estimated to equal all the estimated reserves elsewhere in the world). if we were the bully we're made out to be, we'd just take it.





The comparison arises for me in questioning the motive that the US may have in making sure that the government that results will be more controllable by the US. but again - there we are militarily. if we want control, then why the pretense of putting any government in place at all besides our own? the other question is what the secondary motive we would have for a more pliable or controllable government. what is it we want from iraq? the oil? it's such a ridiculous argument. if we wanted the oil - then again, why not saudi arabia?





If that is the goal the likelihood of the politicians announcing it and going
i presume that's a typo - you meant 'denouncing', correct?



about it brazenly would result in world war. But, if done in subtle ways and successfully, the goal is acquired through bullying and subversive manipulation.
considering the worldwide approbation regarding the iraq war, i hardly think it would take much more to make people consider world war. if we were brazen, i still don't think italy would ride in with their jet fighters and start attacking US forces.





I am not anti-American.
to be clear, i wasn't addressing that at you. it was meant in general. worldwide the attitude is generally "yeah they do a lot of good around the world but they're a big bunch of mean old bullies mostly"





To me, the US is like a friend that does really great things but also does really nasty things. I can like it for the really nice things it does but call it a bully when it does the nasty things. Unlike a friend, the US is a conglomeration of people not just a single individual. So it becomes more like a gang. There are many instances where members of a gang do really horrible things because they like their association with the gang. There are sociological studies done on boys that have participated in gangrapes even though they were nauseous at the act as they were performing it. It is the ability of the leader of the gang to manipulate the members of the gang into doing what they know is wrong (and teaching them to justify it) that causes global concern for me when we are talking about a powerful country and not just a group of kids.
i'm afraid using a metaphor of gang rape to explain the US really, really offends me.

To clarify:

If the US has a diabolical motive for attacking Iraq it would not benefit them to announce to the world what it is. I am not diabolical so I am not very good at figuring out the motives of those who are. For the same reason, it usually needs to be pointed out to me that something diabolical is going down.

Does not knowing the reason for immoral actions negate the immorality? Not being sure of motivations merely makes criticism more difficult...which is the intention of hiding motivations in the first place.

My use of the gang rape analogy is intended to make a point and do so dramatically. Point: the similarity of how ethics can be clouded when part of a gang mentality. The actual act could be changed to beating up any type of person by physical force of any nature. All the change in wording does is soften the blow of the analogy. Rather like those hated euphemisms that take away from the severity of what is going on.

koan wrote: To clarify:



If the US has a diabolical motive for attacking Iraq it would not benefit them to announce to the world what it is. I am not diabolical so I am not very good at figuring out the motives of those who are. For the same reason, it usually needs to be pointed out to me that something diabolical is going down.



Does not knowing the reason for immoral actions negate the immorality? Not being sure of motivations merely makes criticism more difficult...which is the intention of hiding motivations in the first place.
if you work on the assumption that the actions were immoral, and that the intentions must be diabolical, then i can see where you're coming from. on the other hand, one could take them at their word - they believed there were WMD's. they believed hussein had connections to al qaeda (he has many connections to terrorists, it's worth noting - the lack of direct al qaeda cooperation doesn't negate that). now that hussein - dictator, despot - is gone, we are supporting the iraqi people until they can stand on their own. the 'insurgents' (terrorist jihadists) are hell bent on preventing the iraqi people from standing on their own, since going back to pre-war conditions - or for that matter, going back to pre-saddam conditions, isn't equivalent to seventh century mesopotamia, free of infidels, and infidel sects of islam.



My use of the gang rape analogy is intended to make a point and do so dramatically. Point: the similarity of how ethics can be clouded when part of a gang mentality. The actual act could be changed to beating up any type of person by physical force of any nature. All the change in wording does is soften the blow of the analogy. Rather like those hated euphemisms that take away from the severity of what is going on.
in making that point, are you referring to 'what is going on' as the jihadists coming into iraq from syria and elsewhere, beheading people, setting off car bombs to kill civilian iraqis, taking hostages, blowing up oil pipelines (there's that oil again - if it could be started flowing with some regularity, the iraqis could start selling it, and begin paying for the rebuilding of their own infrastructure).



the jihadists are waging a war against the iraqi civilian population. they're killing hundreds and thousands of iraqis in the process - US military actions are causing a tiny fraction of that body count at this point.



what, exactly, is going on in iraq, and why should george bush be put on trial for war crimes - rather than those folks beheading people and killing civilians intentionally(very, very clear violations of the geneva convention, and genuine war crimes)?

I have to go out for a few hours but, in the meantime...

Euphemisms detracting from "what's going on" refers only to the annoying PC habit of calling war "conflict" and such (see George Carlin rant on topic)

That the Iraqi 'way of life' was not great is, I believe, not under debate. There are many countries with horrendous abuses of human rights yet they are not all under US attack at the moment. "Liberating the people" makes for wonderful headlines and gains supporters.

The Iraq War and Contempt for Democracy

Critics are also aware that nothing has been heard from the present incumbents -- with their alleged concern for Iraqi democracy -- to indicate that they have any regrets for their previous support for Saddam Hussein (or others like him, still continuing) nor have they shown any signs of contrition for having helped him develop weapons of mass destruction (WMD) when he really was a serious danger.

Nor has the current leadership explained when, or why, they abandoned their 1991 view that "the best of all worlds" would be "an iron-fisted Iraqi junta without Saddam Hussein" that would rule as Saddam did but not make the error of judgment in August 1990 that ruined Saddam's record.

from Imperial Presidency again.

The sacred doctrine of self-immunization is sure to hold of the trial of Saddam Hussein, if it is ever held. We see that every time that Bush, Blair, and other worthies in government and commentary lament over the terrible crimes of Saddam Hussein, always bravely omitting the words: “with our help, because we did not care.” Surely no tribunal will be permitted to address the fact that US presidents from Kennedy until today, along with French presidents and British Prime Ministers, and Western business, have been complicit in Saddam’s crimes, sometimes in horrendous ways, including current incumbents and their mentors. In setting up the Saddam tribunal, the State Department consulted US legal expert Prof. Charif Bassiouni, recently quoted as saying: "All efforts are being made to have a tribunal whose judiciary is not independent but controlled, and by controlled I mean that the political manipulators of the tribunal have to make sure the US and other western powers are not brought in cause. This makes it look like victor's vengeance: it makes it seem targeted, selected, unfair. It's a subterfuge." We hardly need to be told.

...



Notice that the crucial issue with regard to Middle East oil – about 2/3 of estimated world resources, and unusually easy to extract -- is control, not access. US policies towards the Middle East were the same when it was a net exporter of oil, and remain the same today when US intelligence projects that the US itself will rely on more stable Atlantic Basin resources, including Canada, which forfeited its right to control its own resources in NAFTA.



There is much more I want to investigate but have a number of distractions at the moment that prevent me. I WILL BE BACK.

Dominance and its Dilemmas

That is widely understood. As the United States invaded Iraq, Arthur Schlesinger wrote that Bush’s grand strategy is “alarmingly similar to the policy that imperial Japan employed at Pearl Harbor, on a date which, as an earlier American president said it would, lives in infamy.” FDR was right, he added, “but today it is we Americans who live in infamy.” It is no surprise that “the global wave of sympathy that engulfed the United States after 9/11 has given way to a global wave of hatred of American arrogance and militarism” and to the belief that Bush is “a greater threat to peace than Saddam Hussein.”

...



It is not enough for a hegemonic power to declare an official policy. It must establish it as a “new norm of international law” by exemplary action. Distinguished commentators may then explain that law is a flexible, living instrument, ensuring that the new norm is available as a guide to action. It is understood that only those with the guns can establish “norms” and modify international law.

The selected target must meet several conditions. It must be defenseless, important enough to be worth the trouble, and an imminent threat to our survival and ulitimate evil nature. Iraq qualified on all counts. The first two conditions are obvious. For the third, it suffices to repeat the orations of Bush, Blair, and their colleagues: The dictator “is assembling the world’s most dangerous weapons [in order to] dominate, intimidate or attack”; and he “has already used them on whole villages leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind or transfigured. . . . If this is not evil then evil has no meaning.”

President Bush’s eloquent denunciation surely rings true. And those who contributed to enhancing evil should certainly not enjoy impunity: among them, the speaker of these lofty words, his current associates, and those who joined them in the years when they were supporting the man of ultimate evil long after he had committed these terrible crimes and won the war with Iran, with decisive U.S. help. We must continue to support him, the Bush I administration explained, because of our duty to help U.S. exporters.

...

Also easy to suppress are the reasons why Washington returned to supporting Saddam immediately after the Gulf War as he crushed rebellions that might have overthrown him. The chief diplomatic correspondent of the New York Times explained that “the best of all worlds” for Washington would be “an iron-fisted Iraqi junta without Saddam Hussein,” but since that goal seems unattainable, we must be satisfied with the second best. The rebels failed because Washington and its allies held that “whatever the sins of the Iraqi leader, he offered the West and the region a better hope for his country’s stability than did those who have suffered his repression.”9 All of this is suppressed in the commentary on the mass graves of the victims of Saddam’s U.S.–authorized paroxysm of terror, crimes that are now offered as justification for the war on “moral grounds.”10 It was all known in 1991 but ignored for reasons of state: successful rebellion would have left Iraq in the hands of Iraqis.

It is rather overwhelming to read the collection of evidence, quotations from government officials and released documents of other US foreign affairs from the past. This was all prompted by my recent library discovery "Changing the Bully Who Rules The World". It is not a book about the United States. It was not checked out with the Iraq War in mind. My eyes have been opened to a whole new side of the world and some of the people in it. There is a sociological tendancy in people to become the allies of bullies without even realising what has happened. Why did people support Hitler? (No. I'm not saying Bush is like Hitler) I don't ever want to be a follower of a bully. I am trying to learn how to be more aware. That I or anyone else can find they have been supporting a cruel person does not mean that I or anyone else is a bad person. With bullies we are all victims.

I'm not completely happy with what I just wrote. But there is something in there that makes sense. I'll figure it out better later.

posted by anastrophe

well, i guess what it boils down to for me, unfortunately, is 'so what?'. what do we learn, how is the discussion informed, by saying iraq is like vietnam? it's clearly premature to say that iraq *is* a quagmire - at best people are saying 'it looks like a quagmire' or 'it is becoming a quagmire'.


You can spend a lot of time looking for similarites and kind of miss the point maybe. America is a democracy, the only way you will get it's people to fight is if you convince them war is justified To me the biggest similarities is not so much the conflict itself but the fog of confusion surrounding the reasons for war and the way patriotism was used to justify military action abroad. How those who oppose it are pilloried as unpatriotic and scum-you don't support the war therefore you want to see our trops killed-you don't support the war that means you support terrorists. You live in this country therefore you should do what your country wants you to do.

Arguably vietnam was the mess left from french colonialism-and japanese attempts to emulate them, that the people themselves should sort out without intereference. You could probably say the same about the present middle east being the result of french and british colonialism-africa too for that matter except add in american and russian stirring of the pot in the last fifty years.

So basically the similarities imo are the obfuscation of facts and the way it was "sold" to the american people and the demonisation of the enemy and those who oppose the war. Apart from that focussing on similarities in the actual war detracts from and does not inform the debate.

Biggest difference is British involvement. Not least because the best army in the world is involved fighting with the US you might have a better chance of being successful :sneaky: If Iraq starts to look like another Vietnam you can just take it as given that the British people will not stand for it, similarly any extension of conflict to Iran or Syria.

Chomsky makes some good points but like a lot of intellectuals he seems to see the world in terms of political elites manipulating events and the media to get their way and that the people are like mushrooms to be kept in the dark and fed S*&*&T to keep them happy. I think he underestimates the intelligence of people. Nor is this simple imperialism in a way banging on about american imperialism detracts from what he has to say as it turns people off.

Having said that I had not heard of Chomsky until fairly recently so I am only going by impressions.