Iraq vs Vietnam and The Fog of War
Last night I watched The Fog of War (2003). Excellent film. As I watched it, I couldn't help think about the current conflict in Iraq and the parallels to the Vietnam war.
The film is really cool because McNamara provides his insight into key decisions surrounding the Vietnam war (and WWII). Since the film tells the story chronologically (pretty much), I was shocked at how familiar all of it sounded.
I'm not really a history buff so hearing about some of the steps in the Vietnam war was pretty enlightening. I decided to do a little searching for some articles that talked about Iraq and Vietnam; there are a lot out there. One had exactly the information that I was looking for though. It breaks Vietnam down into three phases and explores the correlation to the current Iraq war. It isn't a bad read, but here's a concise version of the phases
| Phase | Vietnam | Iraq | Analysis |
| Building the Case | The strategic purpose for the US was containment of China and limiting communism. Ends with the Gulf of Tonkin incident. | The strategic purpose was elimination of an axis of evil state, a tyranical dictator, nexus of terrorism link to Bin Laden, and weapons of mass destruction. Later, the viral democracy theory popped up as well. | The Gulf of Tonkin was a gross misreading of intelligence information at best, wag-the-dog style manipulation at its worst. The same can be said for WMDs and the nexus of terrorism. Both wars have confused strategic purposes. |
| War goes badly | marked by a refusal to reconsider the war’s strategic rationale. Rather, debate focused only on tactical issues as the war went sour. (e.g. How many troops, how to keep peace, etc). | Since 2003, public discourse has focused on how the war is being fought. Reconstruction is inadequate. Not enough troops are available. We should not have dismantled the Iraqi military. Elections will save the day. The insurgency is in its last throes. And so on. | This phase ends in both wars-- when the costs go through the roof, casualties rise and American public support wanes. In both, the war supporters start saying We can't get out! because of reprisals against those who helped us, failed state == bad (communism or terrorists) and civil war might happen. |
| We leave | The US tried to save face using Vietnamization and fake diplomacy in Paris. Neither worked. Ends when helicopters evacuated the American Embassy in Saigon | We haven't started to leave just yet, but the writing is on the wall. The only significant difference here is that oil is at stake. Once the helicopters come for the occupants of the Green Zone, this phase will end | In both wars, the US loses some stature in the international communtiy and appears imperialistic. |
Part of what makes the film really interesting is McNamara himself. He freely admits that his actions (in WWII) would be called war crimes if we had lost; he seemed genuinely remorseful. I wonder if good old Chimpy McFlightsuit and Donald Rumsfeld will ever feel this way about Iraq? Doubtful, but one can hope..