California Conservative

History explains why.

Republican Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel said on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday show that Iraq is more and more resembling Vietnam and that the US is failing in Iraq.

The Washington Post reports:

“Stay the course is not a policy. Part of the problem that we have, as Henry Kissinger pointed out here in the last few days in an op-ed in the Washington Post, is we have no measurement for progress, for success. So I think by any standard, when you analyze two and a half years in Iraq, where we have put in over a third of a trillion dollars, where we have lost almost 1,900 Americans, over 14,000 wounded, electricity production down, oil production down, any measurement, any standard you apply to this, we’re not winning.”

”We should start figuring out how we get out of there. 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.”

“We’re past that stage now because now we are locked into a bogged-down problem not unsimilar, dissimilar to where we were in Vietnam. The longer we stay there, the more similarities are going to come together.”

What a disappointment not only because Hagel is a Republican and Vietnam veteran, but because he is a United States Senator. The ignorance of his statements are inexcusable.

There are few similarities between Iraq and Vietnam. 25% of US troops in Vietnam were drafted, contrasted by a current 100% volunteer US force. US casualties in Iraq are but a fraction of the casualties in Vietnam, including civilian. U.S. support among Iraqis is high and they, by and large are grateful for U.S. intervention. In Vietnam the enemies were communists, but in Iraq the enemies are Islamic extremist terrorists. The landscape, the duration of war and waging of the war, technological advancement and the behavior of the soldiers toward the enemy and civilians are all very different.

The few similarities between Vietnam and Operation Iraqi Freedom include the French, who were either too ineffectual or incapable of keeping their own territory in Vietnam and equally as ineffectual or incapable of fighting terrorism or making Saddam comply with U.N. resolutions; the guerilla warfare and terroristic methods used against both US troops and civilians; a hippie anti-war movement that seeks to undermine US success in war as well as to demonize the US soldier; and of course, John Kerry.

Staying the course is not a policy? Since when? Since giving up seems to be a better one which the left unyieldingly employs. Not staying the course certainly didn’t work well for Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr. or Bill Clinton.  In fact, it was not staying the course that led to 9/11.

If the standard for determining success in war is duration and cost, why is there no outcry about the “unjust war” in Afghanistan? The U.S. has been there longer and the “over a third of a trillion dollar” figure Sen. Hagel mentioned includes Afghanistan.  There are ongoing American casualties as a result of the war against al-Qaeda and terrorism, both military and civilian… but where are the anti-war activists and Hagel in their criticism of Operation Enduring Freedom?  You won’t find them, because Iraq is the political football of choice since success there has bigger implications for Pres. Bush.  Let’s face it, even Al Gore could have pulled off Operation Enduring Freedom, but Operation Iraqi Freedom?  The press also is unusually quiet about Afghanistan….. it would be a shame to highlight US successes there when they could focus on terrorists blowing up civilians in Iraq.

For Sen. Hagel to imply that power outages and a decrease in oil production are a result of US failure in Iraq is disingenuous at best. The alternative is that the terrorists blow up more civilians and US troops, since they are the ones sabotaging electrical power plants and water resources, as well as oil refineries. The good news is that the slogan “No Blood for Oil” is weakening, since “oil production in Iraq is down.”

Another source of disappointment is in hearing that Henry Kissinger, a former US secretary of state and national security adviser and intellectual extraordinaire, wrote in his op-ed piece, that “we have no measurement for progress or success.” Sen. Hagel is counting on nobody reading Kissinger’s article and on everyone taking his word for Kissinger’s remarks.

No where in his article did Mr. Kissinger even barely suggest that in Iraq we have no measurement for progress or success. In fact, Kissinger’s thoughtful and intelligent article described why we must win in Iraq, what the difficulties there are and how Iraq is NOT like Vietnam, except in very minute ways.

This is some of what Mr. Kissinger wrote:

For someone like me, who observed at first hand the anguish of the original involvement in Vietnam during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations and who later participated in the decisions to withdraw during the Nixon administration, Casey’s announcement revived poignant memories.

History, of course, never repeats itself precisely. Vietnam was a battle of the Cold War; Iraq is an episode in the struggle against radical Islam. The stake in the Cold War was perceived to be the political survival of independent nation-states allied with the US around the Soviet periphery. The war in Iraq is less about geopolitics than a clash of ideologies, cultures, religious beliefs.

Because of the long reach of the Islamist challenge, the outcome in Iraq will have an even deeper significance than Vietnam.

In essence, the Iraqi war is a contest over which side’s assessment turns out to be correct. The insurgents bet that by exacting a toll among supporters of the Government and collaborators with the US, they can frighten an increasing number of civilians into at least staying on the sidelines, thereby undermining the Government and helping the insurgents by default.

The Iraqi Government and the US count on a different kind of attrition: that possibly the insurgents’ concentration on civilian carnage is because of the relatively small number of insurgents, which obliges them to conserve manpower and to shrink from attacking hard targets; hence the insurgency can gradually be worn down.

As for destabilization in the Middle East, according to Sen. Hagel if we stay we make it more so and if we leave we make it more so. One could consider the United States “unstable” during the Civil War of 1861-1865, which was a longer (so far) and far bloodier war than Operation Iraqi Freedom, yet we were able to see our way through and work through our deeply intense problems, successfully carrying on as one country. It was a process of reuniting the north and south which took a century…. yet Sen. Hagel would have us forget the luxury of time which we have been afforded and pronounce 2.5 years too long for Iraq.

All one needs is a sense of optimism and hope resulting from seeing millions of Iraqis risk their safety in January 2005 to invest in their own country, yet many wish to handicap the progress in Iraq by withdrawing “now”, or at least soon. It almost appears that anti-war activists and politicians hopping aboard the “leave Iraq” train have something against Arabs.

While it can be argued that Islam is a very difficult religion which makes tolerance and peace an obstacle, it can also be argued that the same spirit that wanted slavery to remain a way of life in America was equally as intolerant. Should opportunity be granted only to countries that can help themselves, or should it be extended to those who may also need assistance?

It would appear quasi-racist to suggest the former.

Declaration of Independence in the United States was adopted on July 4, 1776. It wasn’t until almost 5 years later on March 1, 1781 that the Articles of Confederation were ratified, giving America a provisional Constitution. Finally on June 21, 1788, the Constitution was ratified. It took America almost 12 years to propose and ratify our Constitution. Since then, the Constitution has been amended numerous times. In fact, the last Constitutional amendment took place on May 7, 1992 (Amendment 27).

The official transfer of sovereignty was handed back to the Iraqi people on June 28, 2004. Iraq has only been working on its own Constitution for 1 year. When Sen. Hagel says “So I think by any standard, when you analyze two and a half years in Iraq, any measurement, any standard you apply to this, we’re not winning,” it’s an alarming testament to our own American shortsightedness.

How about making HISTORY the determination for success in Iraq.  Perhaps taking a deep breath from the constant flow of pessimistic rhetoric would allow us to look back historically over the forging of civilization, nations, infrastructure and governments and use that as the measuring stick. If that is done, clearly Iraq is anything but “not winning”.

Originally Posted at The Roundtable

This entry was posted on Friday, August 26th, 2005 at 9:39 am and is filed under Author: Amy Proctor, History, Iraq, Military, Washington, DC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.