Only one analogy seems to work

August 22, 2005

In looking for a historical parallel for the war in Iraq, political observers everywhere are drawing comparisons to other historic military campaigns. In just the last few days, I’ve seen three major comparisons — but only one seems to be on the right track.

The LA Times, for example, noted a parallel to World War II.

There were few misgivings about the need to fight World War II because America had been attacked at Pearl Harbor. Most Americans also were eager to stop Hitler’s Germany from taking over all of Europe.

The same cannot be said of the Iraq war because of the debate over whether Saddam Hussein’s regime had any link to the Sept. 11 attacks. The futile search for weapons of mass destruction also made skeptics of many on the home front.

“World War II had lots of discouraging moments, but almost everyone saw that it had to be carried out to its conclusion,” said historian Geoffrey C. Ward, whose 14 books include one on the Civil War.

Not much of a resemblance here. How about America’s Revolutionary War? Slate’s Fred Kaplan noted that it’s a popular point of comparison for Bush and Rumsfeld, but it doesn’t work either. Among the key differences:

America’s Founding Fathers shared the crucible of having fought in the Revolutionary War for the common cause of independence from England. This bond helped overcome their many differences. Iraq’s new leaders did not fight in their war of liberation from Saddam Hussein. It would be as if France had not merely assisted the American colonists but also fought all the battles on the ground, occupied our territory afterward, installed our first leaders, composed the Articles of Confederation, and organized the Constitutional Convention. The atmosphere in Philadelphia, as well as the resulting document and the resulting country, would have been very different. […]

Sectarianism did not exist in early America. Yes, there were sharp regional differences between mercantile New England and the agrarian South, as well as moral splits over slavery. But no groups exacerbated these tensions by asserting an exclusive claim on God.

Early America saw armed revolts, notably Shays’ Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion. But they were protests led by debt-ridden farmers against rising taxes — not pervasive or murderous insurgencies against the entire established order. They were also put down fairly promptly — Shays’ by a state militia, the Whiskey Rebellion by a mere show of government force.

0-for-2. Sen. Hagel, do you have a historical parallel to share?

A leading Republican senator and prospective presidential candidate said Sunday that the war in Iraq has destabilized the Middle East and is looking more like the Vietnam conflict from a generation ago.

Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, who received two Purple Hearts and other military honors for his service in Vietnam, reiterated his position that the United States needs to develop a strategy to leave Iraq.

Hagel scoffed at the idea that U.S. troops could be in Iraq four years from now at levels above 100,000, a contingency for which the Pentagon is preparing.

“We should start figuring out how we get out of there,” Hagel said on “This Week” on ABC. “But with this understanding, we cannot leave a vacuum that further destabilizes the Middle East. I think our involvement there has destabilized the Middle East. And the longer we stay there, I think the further destabilization will occur.”

Hagel said “stay the course” is not a policy. “By any standard, when you analyze 2 1/2 years in Iraq … we’re not winning,” he said.

Well, at least one of the comparisons makes sense.

OF COURSE the only analogy or parallel is Vietnam, and it takes a Vietnam vet to call it for what it is. I suspect that the two LATimes writers (Josh Getlin and Elizabeth Mehren) as well as Fred Kaplan have no military service in Vietnam, and maybe at least the first two are too young to have real-time first-hand experience of America’s growing hostility towards both the Vietnam war AND our political/military leaders.

Using other wars misses the mark for (at least) two reasons: Vietnam is the most recent “war” that Americans rejected and on which the last election turned; and the Iraq war was debated with Vietnam as THE frame, and in spite of BushCo’s spinning to the contrary the parallels are frighteningly and discouragingly similar — and becomes more so every day.

Just another demonstration of the CCCP’s (Compliant Complicit Corporate Press’) willingness to obfuscate and give Bush a pass on this ever-growing disaster that has made America more vulnerable and less safe than before his lies moved us to invade. “Context” is something that the CCCP simply fails too often to provide — and Vietnam IS the context here — and therefore allows the spinners and the liars to perpetrate their frauds on America and the world.

Lying.Fucking.Bastards.

  • Don’t forget about those multiple tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Unlike WWII, there is no sense of shared sacrifice. Without that ” sense of shared sacrifice,” resentment in the general populace is beginning to bloom.

    Yes, it is more like the Vietnam war than anything else.

  • Regarding the Revolutionary war analogy – there were plenty of people in the colonies called loyalsts who didn’t see things the same was as the founders of the country. So not only did a hefty segment not fight with the founding fathers some even fought for the crown.

    Regarding the WWII analogy – look at how everyone pitched in (as in contrast to Iraq). Civlians did with less, men volunteered from every walk of life, the whole country was focused on winning.

    As for the VietNam, the Cunning Realist has an interest 15-point comparison that is quite good – even if the comparisons aren’t exact.

    http://cunningrealist.blogspot.com/2005/06/historys-rhyme.html

  • It wasn’t a war but I think that the Bay of Pigs would be a more apt comparison.

    Consider the similarities. The landing was a group of Cuban exiles, in Iraq we were duped (partially) by an exile – Chalabi. The Cuban invasion was a failure and a source of major international embarrassment. Does this sound anything like Iraq?

    And finally this little gem from Wikipedia. The resulting fiasco of the invasion attempt has been studied as an ideal case of ‘groupthink’ and poor decision making.

    The motivations may have been different in each case and the scale of Iraq is much larger but the end result is essentially the same. The United States ended up being Goliath to David.

  • Whoops! Didn’t see that Mark. You
    got it first. But then, I’ve been shut
    out of posting several times today –
    keep getting messages that it’s
    closed.

  • Even the Vietnam analogy has some problems. For one thing Vietnam thought of itself as a nation. It was about to hold national elections back in 1956, with Ho Chi Minh (who adored Thomas Jefferson, btw) as the inevitable winner. John Foster Dulles flat out rejected any “commie” regime there, thus the splitting the nation, with Ho up North and our stooges down South. We picked the losing side in the civil war we created.

    It could also reasonably be argued that Vietnam peasants didn’t think of themselves as a nation at all. They cared nothing about ideology, only about their own family rice paddy. That’s why they declared loyalty to whoever was marching through that day, much to our annoyance.

    “Iraq” is a bunch of tribes and sub-tribes contained a boundary originally drawn to suit the needs of Great Britain. Tribal loyalties and conflicts are further confounded by overlain relgious differences. It was bound to turn into a quagmire for whoever toppled Hussein’s bullying.

    I don’t know any apt parallel from our history — an uninformed, largely brain-crippled President following the greedy dictates of his Vice President and the neo-con imperialists, invading with less than half the troops his generals said would be needed (his dad used over 500,000 just to push Saddam out of Kuwait), with absolutely no plan for the aftermath, other than his looking like a “war president”. But then I know of no other President about whom it could be said that every single undertaking in his entire life turned out to be a complete and utter fiasco, all paid for by us.

  • Let’s not forget the Spanish-American War.

    “Remember the MAINE!” — a shocking attack on US interests, though the reason for the explosion, and its perpetrators, were never found.

    A nation ripe for occupation — powerful American interests coveted Cuba’s sugar.

    An eager media — William Randolph Hearst told an artist, “You supply the pictures, and I’ll supply the war.” The NEW YORK JOURNAL published an inflammatory letter from the Spanish Foreign Ministry.

    Lots of new US bases around the world — many Americans were horrified at the new imperialism in US foreign policy, but actual protest was muted.

    The war was short, but in its eleven months, three thousand US troops died (90 percent from disease).

  • Syracuse.

    Nicias [Bush] is not the only one who is to blame for the ultimate disaster. Some Athenians, including the popular leader Hyperbolus [Wolfowitz], wanted even bigger things, like an attack on Carthage [Iran]. For the time being, however, the official plan was to support the allies only, and the unstated aim was to conquer the island.

    …

    This was the end of the Sicilian expedition, and the beginning of the end of Athens itself. Those survivors who belonged to the Athenian alliance, the Delian League, were sold as slaves. The Athenians were forced to work in a stone quarry, where they died from malnutrition and exposure.

  • I have to go with the Spanish American war as well. Fought nominally on humanitarian grounds, we ended up committing the very atrocities we were supposed to be putting a stop to. It was also ginned up by the press.

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