Another Blackhawk down! How many more of our men and women are going to perish in the Middle East before something drastic isn't done to resolve this conflict? The body bags are increasing by the day and all I seem to get is a business as usual attitude from our government. At what point do we finish the job??? Just frustrated to hear about our military personnel having their hands basically tied.

The Pres wants to reduce the troops there. Take that any way you wish.

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You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows - Robert A. Zimmerman

There are several huge tactical and strategic differences between Vietnam and Iraq.

1. We are not locked in a death match with another nuclear superpower. Our political leadership in Vietnam did not wish to raise the spectre of direct war with the USSR over their support of Ho. Thus, we could not effectively curtail outside military and financial support.

In Iraq there is a much, much smaller flow of international support, apparently disorganized.

2. There was no worldwide consensus about Vietnam. At different times a melange of nations supported or opposed various solutions.

In general, the world community wants peace in Iraq, though many countries are reluctant to overtly aid in that effort.

1. Tactically, the place is mostly desert and very harsh. Opposition must move in small groups without openly carried weapons or other supplies.

Vietnam is a tropical forested country with a huge open border. Mass movement of men and materiale was possible through the foret and also through adjacent nations.

2. Electronics have advanced such that radio/phone communication is nearly impossible among the terrorists.

Vietcong & NVA had largely unimpeded communications.

3. Over 80% of Iraq and the great majority of the population is essentially peaceful and moving toward some form of self-rule (the Shia south and the Kurdish north). There is still organized opposition in the Sunni-dominated tribal homeland of Hussein and his top leadership.

4. 50% of Vietnam was legally off-limits to US troops.

The most similar period in US history is post WWII Germany in which times were chaotic and the military and political struggle with the USSR became manifest. The people of Germany were become strategic pawns in a new form of global war. Nobody knew what would happen and the German population was terrified at the prospect of domination by the soviets and the soviets were actively undermining the French Republic.

There is no alternative to absolute annhilation of Iraqi resistence. If we falter and skeedadle, the Baathists and Islamists will turn that country into utter chaos. That is a horrible outcome guaranteed by early removal of our forces.

More of our youngsters will die. That's a fact of war. The burdens of their deaths and their suffering are on us, the electorate, as much as on the elected government. We better make sure its worth it.

Botnst

Worked in Viet Nam. What, 6-7 years for total withdrawal?

Jeff

Only the dead have known the end of war. Plato

Over a 100 people die every day in alcohol related car accidents.
and that has been going on for 30 years.
Where is the media outrage? Something drastic needs to be done right.

Over 100 women die every day from breast cancer. That has been a known fact for many years.
Again where is the media outrage? Something drastic needs to be done about it right.

Does anyone see something out of proportion here.

I'm certainly not minimizing the loss of our brave soldiers in Iraq, but the media has lost perspective right now with thier lopsided reporting of what is going on in Iraq. The media is following their own agenda. If they were sincere in hteir concern about the loss of human life they would'nt be focusing on Iraq

MBZ12.... the media is trying to manipulate you so you do something drastic, like vote for Howard Dean next fall. That is the agenda. Dont get sucked into that vortex.

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Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
Calvin Coolidge (1872 - 1933)

Botnst, may I use your foil hat?

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I'd rather argue against a hundred idiots, than have one agree with me. — Winston Churchill

My brother was an infantry officer during the cold war and has several friends still in uniform. They're all at the major and lt col level now. I asked one of them recently about the Iraqi death toll. He said the kill ratio since major ops have ceased, is is still way, way higher than Vietnam.

I asked about non-Iraqi fighters and he said the numbers are growing but they are not an effective threat. He said everybody is certain that most attacks are bounty--money is offered for dead americans, broken equipment, etc.

Remember that what an army officer considers a threat (able to render fighting force ineffective) and what an American civilian considers a threat (any casualty at all) are wildly different.

Using w126's numbers for Vietnam = 60,000/3,000,000 or about 1/100. If that proportion is still the same or smaller than Vietnam, then there have been about 35,000 Iraqi combat deaths.

One thing the army learned was not to get into war-scoring by body count.

The US never lost Vietnam militarily but politically, and this is where a parallel with Iraq might exist. The objective of the guerilla warfare as is now the case, as with any guerilla, is to undermine the public support of the opponent's leadership. If they manage to keep it up for months to come, downing a couple of choppers every week, and suicide-bombing US troops and Iraqi civilians, the US Administration will have a VERY hard job to maintain support for this operation.
So far, it looks as if the US Administration has been praying that this scourge would go away by itself. But there's no denying that it gets worse day by day. The Administration soon has to find a political solution to out-manoeuvre the opposition and get broad popular support of the Iraqi people, and especially the Bagdad population. Their strategy so far has proved to be a failure in doing so, feeding passive/active support for remnants of Saddam-supporters and also attracting Islam fundamentalist terrorists in the region to have a go at US troops on the streets there. If the US Administration maintains their present course of (military) action, a second Vietnam is not unlikely, which would be a disaster for all.

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2011 Prius

Good God! V-dude, I agree with you!

Better check to see what's wrong.

If USA failure in Iraq is important to the world community then.....?

Botnst

Wow Vronsky, I agree with you! The planets must be alighned or something.

your glibness is well taken.

seriously do you think the media is giving us a fair and impartial picture of what is going on over there?

If we are going to loose in Iraq due to politics in this country as is what happenned in vietnam how do you think it happens? Our politics are controlled by public opinion. Who do you think sways public opinion? The Peter Jennings', the dan rathers', the tom brokaw's, the barbara steisland's, the tim robbin's and the rosie o'donnels's of the world.

You dont need a foil hat you just need to turn off your tv or change channels.

__________________
Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
Calvin Coolidge (1872 - 1933)

I agree with both Botnst and Vronsky. I don't think Iraq is much like Vietnam at all, though I do think our boots are on the mucky edge of a quagmire. I don't think the American public will have much stomach for an ongoing 'death by a thousand cuts', not to mention continually funneling billions of budget-busting deficit funds into a country full of 'ingrates' who don't appreciate our "good intentions."

I suspect that the endgame success won't quite match up to the grandiose prognostications of this administration and its Neo-con handlers. If we actually do succeed in establishing democratic principles by means of aggressive force, what if the Iraqis 'choose' to create a hostile theocracy similar to Iran? What then? By over-playing our hand as aggressive occupiers (like we're doing now), we face the very real possibility of winning all the major battles, yet ultimately losing the war....we've been down that road before.

Alex, that's a really difficult question to answer.

Filter #1. Newscasters are human. Their world view is formed by their upbringing, education, friends, family, colleagues, etc. It impossible for them or anybody else to be totally unbiased and objective.

Filter #2 is ourselves, with the perhaps wildly different upbringing, education, family, etc.

How could we know whether the information we receive is biased by our own filter, the newscasters, or both?

Worse, news is made when there's a compelling human interest. Turning on the water and sewage for a town is a huge deal to everybody in that town, but nobody in the USA gives a flip. But a soldier shot dead, that's a front page story, and should be. That bias is built into the news business and into our system of values and not necessarily some secret agenda of the media.

However, even newscasters, in those rare moments of honest candor, will admit to a general liberal bias. The reason liberals get their panties in a wad about Fox News is that they have a conservative bias. I don't think its any worse than the major networks' liberal biases. I usually see a wider range of opinion expressed on Fox, despite their obvious conservatism, than on the other channels.

Botnst

...it also depends on how you define Liberal bias. I find them all to be stiflingly conservative, both in content and the shallowness of their analysis--though Fox IS way over the top with their pandering to the conservative base.

If you really want information, then turn off your TV.

Vronsky, I concur..............

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Vince

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