The North could not have won without its regular army. The Viet Cong carried on a guerrilla war that inflicted numerous casualties, but without the political focus from the North, and the well trained army of the North Vietnamese, there would likely still be two Viet Nams.
Clearly, the United States' leadership did not understand Viet Nam and the political will in that country to resist all invaders.
If only our leaders had considered the cost/benefit analysis in 1962 or so and left the region to its own devices.
As for Iraq, I have concerns about how things are going there. Clearly, Bush's presidency is tied to Iraq, and he could very well not be reelected on that basis alone if things continue to go poorly. To withdraw, however, would be a mistake. The cost/benefit analysis supports our involvement there. The global political situation now is different than it was in the 1960s. In the Viet Nam years, we did not have radical Islamist militants trying to kill us on our own soil.
Like it or not, we need to hunt down and kill the leadership of the Islamic militants. The world will be a better and safer place for it. Of the 3,000 people killed on 9/11, some were liberal, some conservative, and quite a number likely had no strong political feelings whatsoever. Bin Laden and Al Queda don't care. They were Americans. He doesn't care if he kills democrats, republicans, green party members, whatever. As long as they're American that's fine by him. |
