Iraq's election turnout carries eerie echo of Vietnam in 1967

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 2/6/5 | Robert Collier

[SmithL]

The voters came to the polls in huge crowds, ignoring insurgent attacks and casting their votes under the protection of U.S. troops. International observers praised the process, calling it a triumph of democracy and a defeat for tyranny.

Iraq 2005?

No. South Vietnam in September 1967.

As we now know, South Vietnam's experiment in democracy didn't work out well. Communist forces launched the Tet Offensive four months later, forcing the U.S.-backed government almost to its knees, and finally conquered the nation seven years afterward.

After last week's election in Iraq, many critics are finding eerie parallels with the Vietnam vote. Will Iraq turn out the same? Were the elections a sham, a foreshadowing of increased conflict, as claimed this week by Sunni clerics in Iraq who are close to the insurgents?

Even these questions are highly controversial, a sign of the intense public emotions about the Vietnam War, then and now. While there are similarities between the two wartime elections, there are also clear differences.

[SmithL]

Some liberals STILL haven't gotten out of Vietnam.

Oh, did you know that Kerry had been in Vietnam?

[beyond the sea]

Iraq's election turnout carries eerie echo of Vietnam in 1967

Lefty Lunacy

[DTogo]

Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam. It's a quagmire. Blah, Blah, Blah...

[n-tres-ted]

Iraq COULD be another Vietnam... if only the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, they could cut off funds to support the troops and we would lose in Iraq, too.

[MisterRepublican]

Liberal Democrats desperately trying to portray Iraq as Vietnam. Yawn.

[Luddite Patent Counsel]

I could be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure that there was a hot shooting war going on in Viet Nam in 1967. Today, in Iraq, we've already won the shooting war, and are definitely in "mop-up" mode. At the present rate, we'll have to be in Iraq almost 50 years to match the Viet Nam death total for Americans. What do you suppose are the chances of that happening?

[MJY1288]

LOL, The Chronicle is definitely in melt down mode. To compare the Iraqi election to the Vietnam Election is a stretch to say the least.

IT MUST SUCK TO BE A LIBERAL!

[syriacus]

At least the Iraqis got to vote.

Did the Bay of Pigs Invasion win the vote for any Cubans?

[Cicero]

Yes, this talking point has been raised several times now. What many Freepers know, but the liberal loonies will never admit, is that we were WINNING in Vietnam after Westmoreland was replaced. We clobbered the Vietcong in the Tet Offensive.

If we had stuck it out for a few more years, we would have won. We wouldn't have had those Killing Fields, which the Democrats somehow managed to blame on Richard Nixon.

The Democrats started the Vietnam War and screwed it up. Kennedy was incompetent, and LBJ was worse. Then when we finally started winning, the Democrats in congress and the media forced Nixon to pull out.

They betrayed the people of Southeast Asia and then stood by and watched them get killed by the millions. They'd love to do the same thing in Iraq.

[Congressman Billybob]

This writer, and this whole newspaper, are just as dishonest and just as historically ignorant as Senator, just to pick a name not entirely at random. But the editors at the Chronicle share that ignorance. And in "Baghdad by the Bay" (as San Francisco used to be called), an unfortunately large proportion of the population shares that ignorance.

What a shame. City has fantastic geography, climate, architecture, restaurants and entertainment. But it's all downhill from there, exactly as the SF Chief of Police predicted, in a speech I heard him give, 39 years ago, to the San Francisco Jaycees.

Congressman Billybob

Click for latest, "Lies, Lying Liars, and Harry Reid"

[bad company]

Communist forces launched the Tet Offensive four months later, forcing the U.S.-backed government almost to its knees,

Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie,

[vbmoneyspender]

Exactly. I want these leftists to keep making the Vietnam comparison so that people will become aware that in 1973 the war had been won and South Vietnam was standing on its own two feet with the help of the military supplies that we were providing them. Only when the leftists betrayed the South Vietnamese and cutoff funding did South Vietnam buckle in the face of the NVA's '75 offensive.

[26lemoncharlie]

There is a huge difference in the US population this time around. The American people have been educated in the ways of the Socialists Democrats and they will not be able to pull the wool over our eyes again like they did in Vietnam.

There are a lot of Vets like myself who have witnessed their lies and sedetion. It's time to set up a HUAC type commission to investigate the activities of some of the Senators and Representatives who have been representing the US Citizens and find out if they have been defending the Constitutional Republic or Undermining it in favor of Socialism. To find out what agreements they have enteres into with the UN without the knowledge and approval of the American People!

[Democracy In Iraq]

After having intercepted and decoded secret messages hidden in these sorts of articles, I believe I have successully compiled their official strategic handbook.

Following are actual passages from the handbook, as decoded from the intercepted messages:

Followers of the High Order of Treasonous Misfits, you are commanded to implement the following steps, in the order they appear, in our attempt to thwart an American victory in Iraq and provide aid and comfort to our brother terrorists freedom fighters:

1. Compare Iraq to Vietnam

2. Draw a comparison to Vietnam and Iraq

3. Point out any similarities to Iraq and Vietnam

4. Discuss historical parallels between Vietnam and Iraq

5. If all else fails, find ways to evoke images of Vietnam when discussing Iraq

When following the preceding steps, it may help to propose analogies to Iraq and Vietnam.

That is all.

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

12 Feb 55 - President Eisenhower's administration sends 1st 350 U.S. advisers to South Vietnam
to train the South Vietnamese Army
08 Jun 56 - 1st American advisor was killed
5 Sep 56 - President Eisenhower tells a news conference that the French are
"involved in a hopelessly losing war in Indochina"



From a Must Visit Site
Vipers Vietnam Veterans Page, A Vietnam Veteran & Proud Web Site
About Vietnam

The Vietnam war was the longest in our nation's history.
1st American advisor was killed on June 08, 1956,
and the last casualties in connection with the war occurred on May 15, 1975, during the Mayaquez incident. Approximately 2.7 million Americans served in the war zone; 300,000 were wounded and approximately 75,000 permanently disabled. Officially there are still 1,991 Americans unaccounted for from SE Asia.

Vietnam was a savage, in your face war where death could and did strike from anywhere with absolutely no warning. The brave young men and women who fought that war paid an awful price of blood, pain and suffering. As it is said: "ALL GAVE SOME ... SOME GAVE ALL"
The Vietnam war was not lost on the battlefield. No American force in ANY other conflict fought with more determination or sheer courage than the Vietnam Veteran.  For the first time in our history America sent it's young men and women into a war run by inept politicians who had no grasp of military strategies and no moral will to win. They were led by "top brass" who were concerned mainly with furthering their own careers, most neither understood the nature of the war nor had a clue about the impossible mission with which they'd tasked their soldiers.  And the war was reported by a self serving Media who penned stories filled with inaccuracies, deliberate omissions, biased presentations and blatant distorted interpretations because they were more interested in a story than the truth! It can be debated that we should never have fought that war. It can also be argued that the young Americans who fought so courageously, never losing a single major battle, helped in a huge way to WIN THE COLD WAR.

[CyberAnt]

Good grief! Will they ever get over Vietnam ..?? They just can't stand it because they were cowards and they lost the war - when we had actually won it - and they want the same outcome for Bush - it's just pathetic and pitiful.

[Chgogal]

"Were the elections a sham, a foreshadowing of increased conflict, as claimed this week by Sunni clerics in Iraq who are close to the insurgents?"

As Jesse Jackson from Rainbow Push would say, "The Sunnis elected not to be selected."

OMG, Jesse is rubbing off on me!

[anglian]

Beating a Dead Parrot
Why Iraq and Vietnam have nothing whatsoever in common.
By Christopher Hitchens
Jan.31,2005 http://slate.msn.com/id/2112895

[GeronL]

These people cannot get over themselves.

[N3WBI3]

The Tet offensive forced the govt to it knee's? huh! I was under the impression the kill ratio during Tet was something on the order of 15:1 in our favor! What killed S. Vietnam was the fact when the north attacked in the mid 70's (breaking the treaty of paris) we did nothing to stop them.

Iraq is different because we did not break Iraq into different nations.

[GeronL]

Communist forces launched the Tet Offensive four months later, forcing the U.S.-backed government almost to its knees

The Tet offensive crippled the enemy to the point where North Vietnamese regular troops had to be used. It would have been the end of the communist insurgency without the NV forces, Chinese help and of course the anti-war marches in the US.

[Red Sea Swimmer]

Good comments.

Unfortunately for the people of that part of Asia, the area was not seen as strategically important enough to assist for the long term by the USA and other allies.

[Cold Heat]

LOL!

The Libs never fail to get everything wrong.

What happened in Nam was a true insurgency. They had a political agenda and leadership, and they had real purpose.

What is happening in Iraq does not even rise to the level of a insurgency.

These are true terrorists, void of any purpose but chaos and doomed to failure. They have no political purpose and the stated purposes are as varied as the wind.

They are also killing the local population with zeal and determined idiocy.

They are not and never have been a insurgency.

The closest they came to one was Sader and he has decided to play ball.

[Cold Heat]

of course the anti-war marches in the US.

Yes, and we are still fighting that particular enemy.

[SuziQ]

Communist forces launched the Tet Offensive four months later, forcing the U.S.-backed government almost to its knees, and finally conquered the nation seven years afterward.

Say what? Tet cause huge damage to the North Vietnamese, and the only reason they 'conquered the nation' seven years later was because of idiots like this writer and newsfolks like Walter Cronkite intoning the 'body count' every night and making their viewers believe we were losing. They were aided in their efforts by John Kerry, and Teddy Kennedy who negotiated with the North Vietnamese separately from Dr. Kissinger and played both American ends against the middle.

[Calif4Bush]

There is NO, I mean "NO" connection between Vietnam and Iraq!!

Anyone who thinks so is "WRONG"!!

And you can take that to the bank!!

[Free Vulcan]

The article doesn't reflect perceptions, it's trying to create them...as all good propaganda does.

They do toward the end finally admit that there is no reall parallel, but how many will never read that far? But it does give them deniability.

[LibertarianInExile]

Oh, give me a $#@%@## break...the MSM can't leave off the Vietnam comparisons even in the face of obvious differences. What a bunch of dinosaurs. I'm short-selling Post and Hearst stock TODAY.

[Allegra]

The only thing Iraq and Vietnam have in common is that they're both in Asia. And on different ends of it at that.

Drop it, libs. You're going to lose this one, too.

[lowbridge]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3066912

Get bent, DUers. :-)

[ORECON]

My email to:

Robert Collier,

The major difference between Iraq and Viet Nam is the heir of Uncle Walter Cronkite is leaving with his tail between his legs. The mainstream media led by Cronkite and the cheerleading team of Jane Fonda and John Kerry snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in Viet Nam. Those three people prolonged the war, added about twenty percent of the names to the Viet Nam Wall, and added years to the POWs time being tortured.

The Swift Boat Veterans and POWs for Truth are only the tip of the iceberg. There are over two million Viet Nam veterans including myself. We remember what the mainstream media did to us thirty-five years ago and will be damned if we will stand by and let it happen to our children and grandchildren. You burned us before because we had no voice. We are angry as hell and will not take it this time.

The silent majority is silent no more. We have the internet, email, and blogs to get our message out. We also have the rising star of Fox News; which is only slightly left leaning, but far more balanced than any other news outlet. You are misunderestimating George W. Bush and us if you don’t see the tsunami headed your way.

[Servant of the 9]

The difference is that as soon as our troops were out, the DemonRats in control of congress reneged on the massive aid we had promised both North and South Vietnam, and caused the war to start back up. I don't think Republicans can be that stupid.

So9