The Prez Finally Makes It To Vietnam

The Prez Finally Makes It to Vietnam. Well, what do you know? It was a little late as far as the Vietnam war is concerned but I guess better late than never. At least he was not like the VP who had other priorities during Vietnam that kept him from serving.

I guess there is something to say that the President visited given the US exit, humiliating as it was. Amazing, how things change. Who is writing the President's speeches? He, in affirming Vietnam and its tremendous growth; and the fact that it is poised to rival economies like China, and Japan, is to be commended. But, he compared Vietnam's transition to a modern, growing economy that gave him hope about what could be rebuilt from the ruins of Iraq. Also, the American experience in Vietnam was that "we'll succeed (in Iraq) unless we quit."

With statements like these, I often would love to say, "Mr. President, I think you inhaled?" The comparison of success and failure in Vietnam and Iraq could not be more dissimilar. We made some basic errors in Vietnam that had we done differently, it is hard to know what would have happened. At a particular juncture, realizing that the South Vietnamese government was so corrupt, we should have taken over the country, done what we had to do and sorted it out later. Given who we are as a democracy that was nearly impossible. Add to this that we continued to make some basic mistakes that are very similar to what we have done in Iraq which drives us to think, Iraqnam.

The moment we introduced conventional soldiers into Vietnam, it became an American war. Had we left the Special Forces mainly involved with the South Vietnamese Army as advisers, it could have turned out differently. Not in winning but in staying. Ho Chi Minh always felt he could wait us out--had he concluded that we were not leaving, he would have sued for peace maybe and been serious about it. If history has shown us anything about Ho, it has been that he was practical. But, with conventional troops, the agitation of leaving from the homeland became more and more a piece of the puzzle. Americans have a hard time believing that there is an element of our society, i. e., military that loves war and were prepared to stay as long as it took.

One big difference in Vietnam and Iraq and what makes the comparison so fruitless is that the Vietnamese have always had a great sense of national identity. Whether North or South, always Vietnamese. They fought wars for years and the American war was just another one. For the North and South, it was a war of ideology, not culture.

There's surely more to it than can be delineated here. After the North was triumphant after we left, we had the reeducation camps, the boat people, and the transition to where they are today. Vietnam, especially the South, is bathed in a capitalist economy and anybody who has been there recently can attest to it. Iraq is fueled by tribalism, no real sense of who they are outside of the tribalism. They are Shite, Sunni, Kurds and this is not going to change, thousands of years of history illustrates it. Our leadership continues to be in a state of denial regardless of the evidence and statements from the Leader of the free world comparing Vietnam and Iraq reinforces the denial. Wake up and smell the roses.