Published in the August 2005 Mountain Monthly
Comparing Vietnam and Iraq
I agree with Gary Woods that there are a lot of differences between Vietnam and Iraq, and differences in the United States government's involvement in each. In Vietnam we were supposedly fighting "Godless Communism," and now we are supposedly fighting "Godawful Islam." But in both cases that "supposedly" covers a lot of territory.
The population of Vietnam was 35 million in 1965, the land area is slightly larger than New Mexico and they have a LOT of ocean coastline. They also have a varied religious population-- Buddhists, Catholics, Hindus, Muslims and other religions peacefully coexist. Iraq on the other hand has a population of 26 million at present and a land area that is a bit larger than California-- lots of desert, lots of oil, only one ocean port, and as we know a predominantly Muslim population, with serious problems in the sex and violence departments deriving from that religion.
US warfare in Vietnam cost roughly 58,000 American lives and 140 Billion dollars. Vietnamese casualties, first reported accurately in 1995, were 1,100,000, or a 1/19 ratio of Americans to Vietnamese killed. In Iraq, the death tally as of 8-12-05 is 1846 Americans and about 25,000 Iraqi civilians (exact figures are not available) or a ratio of about 1/14. Many more of the casualties in Iraq are civilian bystanders-- men, women, children, babies. [*2008: American casualties are now 4,000 and the British journal Lancet estimates Iraqi casualties at 655,000.]
We have spent $187 Billion in a little over two years in Iraq, which works out to $1,190 1965-dollars per Iraqi, to bring them democracy (though destroying much of their infrastructure in the process). We spent $4,000 1965-dollars per Vietnamese during our entire twenty years in Vietnam. So our government is not squandering American lives in Iraq the way it did in Vietnam, but it is spending our tax dollars a lot faster.
This same money would have paid for providing health insurance for poor children in America and medicine, childhood immunization and clean water and sanitation needs for the developing world, making us safer by making us better liked by other nations.
Our government propped up a series of unpopular dictators in South Vietnam, starting with Ngo Dinh Diem, supporting his refusal to allow democratic elections to take place. President Eisenhower noted, and President Kennedy agreed that in a fairly run election North Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh would win and unite the country under his form of nationalistic communism.
Then we cooperated in getting Diem and his brother assassinated. Now this is beginning to sound similar to Iraq-- we decide we don't like the current ruler, we get rid of him. But in Vietnam we continued to support dictators and a repressive government. We are trying to avoid making that mistake in Iraq.
We supported and then abandoned Nguyen Van Thieu, who fled to the US in 1975 when Saigon fell. The leader I remember, though, was a General Nguyen Cao Ky, who became South Vietnam's premier in 1965. I read an article, in Parade magazine I think, that quoted him as saying "My only idol is Hitler." From that instant I opposed our support of the South Vietnam government. Hitler was worse than the communists. (Did you know the early Christians tried communism? The real problem isn't communism, it is that humans are such nasty selfish creatures...)
There are important similarities between the two invasions, however. In both cases Americans were committed to an expenditure of lives and money without being told the whole story. We were not told that Ho Chi Minh had been an ally of the United States, an ally who respected America enough to model the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence upon that of the USA.
Ho Chi Minh fought fiercely first against the Japanese invasion in WWII, and then against the French who wished to turn Vietnam back into a French colony (gee, a colony fighting for freedom and independence against an oppressive overseas government! Sound familiar??) Few Americans knew about the Vietnamese struggles against the Japanese and French, or their thousand-year struggle to keep from being absorbed by China. All that Americans were told by our government was that Ho was a GODLESS COMMUNIST!
Our twenty-year sacrifice of lives and money did prevent Ho Chi Minh from becoming elected president of a unified Vietnam. He died in 1969; Saigon fell in 1975. Vietnam is now a country with a one-party, communist political system and a weirdly capitalist economic system.
Was Vietnam worth the lives lost and ruined, the political nastiness, the money that could have been spent to make our own country a better place to live? I don't think so.
As far as the reasons for invading Iraq, not only were we not told the whole story, but we were deliberately given misinformation, which some people obviously still believe. [2008: Note that an independent research group has documented 935 lies told by members of the Bush administration to promote the invasion of Iraq.] Fifteen of the nineteen 9-11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, and still people believe that Saddam Hussein organized and supported them. Most of the Taliban and, of course, Osama bin Ladin, came to Afghanistan from Saudi Arabia.
Saddam Hussein did use chemical weapons against his own people-who were (understandably!) rebelling against him-- but Hussein's atrocities inside Iraq did NOT threaten the United States. We supported this very nasty, but effective tyrant for nine years while he fought Iran for us, and few Americans cared what he did to Iraqis, Shiites or Kurds.
Furthermore, the sickening stories about American abuse of Iraqi prisoners-- the most recent one about the 56-year-old who was beaten to death in November 2003, stuffed inside a sleeping bag after two weeks of torture, certainly do not make Americans look like "liberators" in comparison. Two years down the road, what sickening stories will we hear about what is going on right now? Or will the coverups have become more clever?
Then there's the whole garbage dump of misinformation about nuclear weapons. In February 2002 Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who served for 23 years in the diplomatic corps, visited Niger to look into the allegations that Hussein was attempting to purchase uranium from them at the request of the CIA (not Cheney; Wilson NEVER claimed this). He found no evidence for this, AND the current Nigerian ambassador informed him that she had sent reports to Washington stating basically the same thing.
He returned and made his report to the CIA, so that's two negatives on the uranium story by March 2002, but a year later, in his March 2003 "Meet the Press" appearance, Vice-President Cheney was still saying that Saddam Hussein was "trying once again to produce nuclear weapons."
By the way, I am really annoyed by the letter I received from Representative Pearce's office which tried to defend Karl Rove by defaming Joseph Wilson, referring to Wilson dismissively as a "former Clinton aide." Joseph Wilson, unlike Bush, Cheney, and the rest of the 'chickenhawk gang,' personally defied Saddam Hussein when he was acting ambassador of Iraq in 1991 by sheltering hundreds of Americans in the Iraq embassy in Baghdad while Hussein was threatening to execute anyone caught "harboring foreigners."
And in case you still think there is any doubt about the uranium stuff, please note that the very day after Wilson's article ("What I Didn't Find in Africa") appeared in the New York Times, Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, was saying, "There is zero, nada, nothing new here," and "we've long acknowledged" that information on the attempted purchases from Niger "did, indeed, turn out to be incorrect."
As for the future of Iraq, a Washington Post source said recently, "We set out to establish a democracy, but we're slowly realizing we will have some form of Islamic republic." Another official stated, "We've said we won't leave a day before it's necessary. But necessary is the key word -- necessary for them or for us? When we finally depart, it will probably be for us." Sure sounds like Vietnam to me.
So again I ask, has Iraq been worth the lives lost and ruined, the political nastiness, the money that could have been spent to make our own country a better place to live? And my answer still is, I don't think so.
******
I found all the information for this article on the Internet. I am not interested in hearing about runaway brides or watching 'reality' shows on TV. As a patriotic American, I believe it is my duty to learn the whole truth if I can, and the corporate-owned American media are not a reliable source.
General Vietnam Info: http://www.studentsoftheworld.info/infopays/wfb.php3?CODEPAYS=VTN
Vietnam War Statistics:
http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/rcah/html/ah_089400_vietnamwar.htm, http://www.rjsmith.com/kia_tbl.html
Iraq War cost: http://costofwar.com
Consumer Price Index: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0104544.html
Info on Diem:
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/specials/0004/vietnam.profiles/diem.html
Info on General Ky:
http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-leaders/south-vietnam.htm
"What I Didn't Find in Africa" by Joseph Wilson: http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0706-02.htm
"Bush Claim on Iraq Had Flawed Origin..." http://peacefuljustice.caltech.edu/0728/1.shtml
"US Lowers Sights..."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/13/AR2005081300853.html
*2008: The Lancet, a leading British medical journal founded in 1823, estimates 655,000 more Iraqis died than would have otherwise from the beginning of the invasion in March 2003 to July 2006. How did these Iraqis die?: 340,000 died from gunshot wounds, 78,000 from air strikes, 84,000 from mortar fire and other ordinance, 76,000 from car bombings, 55,000 from preventable disease and lack of access to health care, 12,000 from unknown violent causes, and 12,000 from accidents attributable to violence.