ok i was driving home the other day and listening to NPR as i sometimes tend to do
i dont think anyone has ever accused NPR of leaning to the "right"
for that reason i was rather shocked at what i heard
unfortunately i cant find a printed transcript of the story right now... but its damn good and well worth the listen
its an audio clip and i think you will need to go to the page to hear it
NPR : Iraq Is Iraq; Vietnam Was Vietnam
NPR's All Things Considered - Friday, January 26, 2007
****EDIT****
ok i still cant find a transcript for this article but i just made one
so if you cant listen to the story in the link then read this
i dont think anyone has ever accused NPR of leaning to the "right"
for that reason i was rather shocked at what i heard
unfortunately i cant find a printed transcript of the story right now... but its damn good and well worth the listen
its an audio clip and i think you will need to go to the page to hear it
NPR : Iraq Is Iraq; Vietnam Was Vietnam
Edit- direct link to windows media stream:Iraq Is Iraq; Vietnam Was Vietnam
by Dinesh D'Souza
All Things Considered, January 26, 2007 - Commentator Dinesh D'Souza is tired of hearing all the comparisons between the Iraq war and the Vietnam War. He's not convinced they are at all alike.
NPR's All Things Considered - Friday, January 26, 2007
****EDIT****
ok i still cant find a transcript for this article but i just made one
so if you cant listen to the story in the link then read this
Iraq is not Vietnam, and here’s why:
First we had no vital interests in Vietnam. The United States got involved in Vietnam starting in the 1950s, due to an elaborate but misguided theory of dominoes, so if Vietnam went communist the whole of Asia would become communist. Well it didn’t happen. But my larger point is that when Vietnam did fall to the communists, Americas’ foreign policy interests and economic interests were largely unaffected. Iraq by contrast is strategically vital. Consider its neighbors, Iran, Turkey, Kuwait, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia. If Iraq falls into the hands of the Islamic radicals, they would control two major countries, Iran and Iraq. Next we would expect them to target Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. The outcome in Iraq affects both our security and our economic welfare. For the foreseeable future, we are dependant on Middle Eastern oil. We can not afford to lose Iraq.
Second, in Vietnam we were allied with the bad guys. The South Vietnamese government was corrupt and tyrannical, and our only reason for supporting it was it was that it was a better alternative than the communist regime in the north. In politics it is often a necessity, you ally with the bad guys in order to avoid the worse guys. But the bad guys remain bad guys, they alienate their people, and the popular resentment that they provoke often carries over to us. By contrast in Iraq, we are allied with an elected government. Braving bullets the Iraqi people went to the polls, and elected the current regime. Some people said at the time that this was the government that America installed, but this isn’t true. The Bush administration wanted the secular guy, Alawi. But the Iraqis chose the religious guy. So we have a government that represents the will of the Iraqi majority. That’s a good thing because it means we have local allies in Iraq who have popular support.
Finally in Vietnam there was no way to win the war, and preserve our dignity. The United States in Vietnam faced several hundred thousand resolute communists on the other side. These were guerilla fighters, fighting on familiar territory against American boys who didn’t know why the heck they were going over there. Sure America could have won by bombing Vietnam into the Stone Age, but victory at that price was not worth having. Vietnam was a no win situation. Iraq is not. America can win in Iraq. Military tacticians from Sun Tzu, to Carl von Clausewitz, have pointed out that strength in war can be measured as recourses times will. All the strength in the world is useless if you don’t have the will to fight. We saw the same loss of will over the Vietnam War. But Vietnam was a lost cause. In Iraq we are in danger of losing a war that we can win.
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