1238 Let's revisit Vietnam

Neo-neocon and Vietpundit (see my links) are really excellent reads for revisiting Vietnam and its aftermath, but so is a recent post by Victor Davis Hanson on July 4. He writes:

"The al Qaedists and former Ba'athists anticipate another impending U.S. retreat, like the 1984 flight from Lebanon or the 1993 exit from Somalia after the horrific dragging of American bodies in the streets of Mogadishu. Both pullouts, enshrined in al Qaeda propaganda, contributed to the pre-September 11, 2001, folklore that the United States lacked the stamina to defeat terrorists.

So the media-savvy terrorists have redirected their attacks yet again — back to American troops. Just last week, female Marines, who allay Iraqi unease over the searching of Iraqi women at checkpoints, were blown up aboard an armored truck returning to base from a checkpoint.

In response, the ghost of Vietnam is again being conjured. Given this tendency to compare the two wars, we really should re-examine the horror of Vietnam, specifically its final years."

Our pull out didn't just cause the deaths of millions of our allies, but caused the bubbling up of all sorts of problems when we were perceived as weak and indecisive.

"Those who evoke Vietnam should think carefully of the entire lesson of that tragedy. We hear daily how we once foolishly got into that chaos but rarely the lessons on how we got out.

This present war is not just about the Sunni Triangle, but whether reformers of the Arab world will step forward to emulate a fragile democratic Iraq that survives the jihadist counterassault. For the last three decades, Middle East autocratic regimes either attacked their neighbors or reached understandings with Islamic terrorists to shift blame for their own failures onto an apparently unconcerned United States."
Complete article here.