Is the Iraqi War going to be another Vietnam ?

[diamondick]

Discuss openly. forumers

[SaiFightsMS]

No, too much was learned in Vietnam to prevent it from happening again.

[G95champ]

nope not close

 

Vietnam was a war you could only win by killing everyone. Because you never knew who to trust. BTW our Armed Forces never lost a major battle in Vietnam. Evan the Great Tet Offensive that caught us by suprise. In 2 weeks we had retaken all ground lost. The problem with Vietnam was we never full commited to the war. I don't mean kill everyone but the goverment never fully supported it, protests never let us support it, alos the country was deeply split over race, and other issues. Add to that the deaths of many leaders such as MLKJ, RFK, and the distrust of LBJ and Nixon. Just a bad time.

 

Being a History teacher I will never say we lost the War in Vietnam. Because that would be wrong to tell the vets that. Because they never lost anything. We did not win the Conflict because protesters would not allow our gov. to fully comit to the action we needed.

[Wado Guy]

I agree with the all of the above.

 

There is an actual purpose and game plan behind our military action in Iraq. I'm not sure if Vietnam had a game plan or not. Maybe G95champ could fill us in on the specifics.

 

America learned from the Vietnam War. We're not going to repeat it.

[IAMA_chick]

i'm not too sure, but i'm really hopin' not. and i also agree with Wado Guy about not repeating it, that would just be stupid.

[G95champ]

We had a nice game plan in Iraq. That is to get rid of Saddam and free the people of Iraq. Pretty simple and to the point. By doing so we have moved faster and lost less than any army in the history of the world. Seems like a pretty good plan to me. Add to that a lot of our losses have been because of friendly fire, machine breakdowns, or human error. I think the game plan is pretty good.

 

In Vietnam we never had an objective. LBJ sent more advisors in with the idea they would help train the SV. However advisors quickly became armed guards that quickly became combat troops. Despite (Rolling Thunder) a massive bombing atack on NV. We never hit Command and Control Targets. Sort of like we were acting like we were fighting but we would never hit them where it hurt on purpose. LBJ never commited enough men and weapons to much less he never stated an objective. Nixon came along in 68' and said he was going to pull us out but actully made the war bigger by going into Cambodia and Laos. Again the gov. said one thing and did another. The fact is the military and gov. did not really like each other and the boys in the field paid the price. We were trying to save the SV but never really tried to hit NV. You can't win a war on defense. Sooner or later you got to score. This is basically what happend the score was 0-0 until we pulled out and the SV gave up an HR to the NVA and the war was over.

 

I know that was a big quick but fact is we never had a set objective nor did we fully commit to destroying the NVA and VC.

[diamondick]

We are underestimating the fighting ground.

 

In Irak there is no jungle!!!!!!

[HachiKyu]

Vietname was not a war congress never declared war so it was a conflict... only congress can declare war and as strong as i am against this war with iraq i mean why did we the U.S. give sadamm so many chances i mean we could have done something 12 years ago about it but chose not too...surely we foresaw this coming if not how blind is the U.S. I think personally that this was being pre-planned when and before bush was president he was planning this whole war situation wheather or not the WTC towers were destroyed by terroists. That's just my opinion though. This is one of the times where the U.S. citizens dont want a war and the people in power like the senate and state reps. want war. When will it come to a means of diplomacy to handle things in the world. How many more lives must be spred either from our own men or another countires. I mean history repeats itslef only because no one reads what has happened in the past to make history not repeats itself. I dont think another Vietnam conflict will happen im more on the lines of another pearl harbor incident happening. While we are focusing our dirct imediate attention on Iraq and with N.Korea's head army leader Kim keeping many eyes and ears out on whats going on with us i am just waiting to see if he'll make an attack like tojo did. Thats just my theory and opinion though. I'm not degrading anything that is said by anyone in any means.