Thread for the old timers: Does Iraq remind you of Vietnam yet?

[DanS]

S. Kroeze: Here's the timeline. We stopped operations because we were massacring large number of Iraqi troops through our helicopter gunships. Pictures were starting to come out showing the devastation on the highway of death. Powell said that such unopposed killing was "unchivalrous" and everybody agreed. Then they looked at their objectives, decided that they had been achieved, and then moved to immediately sign the cease fire. The question then is whether or not our view of the destruction caused us to shoehorn the objectives into the "complete" category.

After that, Bush said the war was over, but that the Iraqis should take matters into their own hands and overthrow Hussein. A revolt in the South then ensued, which was crushed in about a week. The Kurds were attacked in the North, and there was a huge humanitarian crisis. We dropped food to them, and eventually set up a no-fly zone to protect them.

MtG is correct in stating that Bush never said explicitly that we would help the revolution. However, some here are saying, including myself, that if you advocate the overthrow of Hussein, then that implies material support. In this view, we shafted the Shiites.

[Spiffor]

I'm not an oldbie, and I wasn't born durin Vietnam. I just want to ask a mere question : was the US army surprised to be fought as an invader rather than welcome as a liberator ?

[DanS]

Well, the jury's still out on whether we will be seen as liberators, or something close to it. Yesterday, I was despairing on the point, but today my mood is somewhat better.

Apparently, there were 5 scenarios in the plan. #1 being hailed as liberators straight off up to #5 being eyed warily or hostilely in many situations. As I understand it, so far they have classified the response as #5. IOW, not "surprised" as much as disappointed.

[Berzerker]

To me, there's a big difference in the morality of these situations. I did not view N Vietnam as the embodiment of evil and S Vietnam as some innocent, moral victim. In Iraq, Saddam and his forces do embody evil and the Kurds, Shi'ites and many Iraqis (in general), while not saintly perhaps, are innocent. I do believe if we stay in there to micromanage after the war we will be subject to continued guerilla attacks. But if we don't stay in, the Ba'athists will try to regain power. There will be a civil war once Saddam is ousted, a war between the ruling Ba'athists and the Shi'ite majority and Kurds seeking reprisals against the thugs who've tormented them for decades.
Maybe (let's hope) the Iraqis will have a more philosophical approach and bury the hatchet like Cambodians did once the Khmer was kicked out of power by the Vietnamese...not likely...but years and years of violence can motivate a tired people to seek peaceful resolutions...

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by S. Kroeze


You might be correct on this issue, but can you provide ANY evidence (speeches by Bush, official government statements etc.) that supports your view.

To me the sudden cease-fire was a complete surprise, and normally I am not that naïve. At the time my father was dying, so it is possible I have missed something.
To this present day I am livid about it.

There's a few things - the texts of the early UNSCRs from 3 August 1990 on all affirm the sovereignty of both Iraq and Kuwait. Although after the fact, both Powell's and Schwarzkopf's autobiographies reflect the same stance, and Schwarzkopf's in particular gives a lot of detail, since as CentCom commander, he was dealing directly with arab defense ministers, military leaders, and in Saudi Arabia, with heads of state.

I don't know of good online resources for Bush's speeches and press statements, etc., since that stuff is pretty selectively archived. IIRC, Bob Woodward's book "The Commanders" gets into that subject as well.

And by the way, even if the official stance was against 'regime change', it doesn't prove that the USA government didn't arrange all sorts of secret deals with Kurds and Shiites.
After all both the Reagan administration and Cheney made deals with the Axis of Evil in Teheran! Another example of similar involvement is the support of the US to the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan in this same period. They provided loads of weapons.

Personally, I don't like 98% of our history dirty dealings with some of the scumbag dictators we've been in bed with, and I'd support a much more aggressive foreign and military policy if we decided we were going to rid the world of ******* leaders, and started systematically liberating countries like Zimbabwe and Myanmar. I'd just like there to be a specific commitment to that, instead of the more common general commitment to get in bed with whoever seems in the short run to be the lesser of evils.

With that disclaimer, (plus I'm a multigeneration southern Democrat with an instinctive dislike for carpetbagging Yankee Republicans, so I'm no fan of the clan, so to speak) I don't believe Bush sr. would have made such deals. First, we're simply inept at getting caught in such things, from support of Pinochet, to the Diem assassination, to Iran-Contra and the BNL scandals.

Speaking of which, there's your main reason - Bush was in serious damage control mode, keeping heat off of just how much we'd supported Saddam in the Iran-Iraq war, and Bush had had to play the "I was out of the loop in that one" defense when Poindexter and Ollie North got caught playing Iran-Contra. With the BNL scandal about our bogus government loan guarantees to Iraq, then the embarassment of a war with Hussein just a few years later, I think the Bush admin would just be too politically gunshy of making such a deal with rebel elements in Iraq, lest public attention really get focused on taxpayers having to make good those billions in loan guarantees.

Support to the mujahedin in Afghanistan was never very "covert" - everyone knew about it. Since it was in the guise of fighting the Soviets, that was one of those deals that nobody felt a need to hide from a domestic political standpoint.

[Alexander's Horse]

Short Memory

Conquistador of Mexico, the Zulu and the Navaho
The Belgians in the Congo
short memory

Plantation in Virginia, the Raj in British India
The deadline in South Africa
short memory

The story of El Salvador, the silence of Hiroshima
Destruction of Cambodia
short memory

The sight of hotels by the Nile, the designated Hilton style
With running water specially bought
short memory

A smallish man Afghanistan, a watch dog in a nervous land
They're only there to lend a hand
short memory

Wake up in sweat at dead of night
And in the tents
new rifles

Hey short memory!


From the Midnight Oil album "10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1"
(Hirst/Moginie/Garrett)

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
TMM: What do you think of the plans to add Crimson Skies to the 'clix empire? I'm very interested in what I've seen so far.

If it takes off (heh), more power to them. I'm not going to get into it, as MK and MW are more than enough for me, and I wasn't thrilled with the back story.

There is some concern that they are overstretching themselves, as the experienced people are getting spread thin. This is, by all reports, a pet project of the company founder, so there's a good chance it'll claim more resources than it otherwise might -- good news for those interested, not so good for the others (especially those of us who watched Pyramids crash and burn).

The flying Santa I got in the mail was cute, though.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
This is, by all reports, a pet project of the company founder,

Excellent. I've been a fan since the PC game and can't wait for it to come out. Marvel and this will more than satisfy my craving for non-PC gaming goodness.

(especially those of us who watched Pyramids crash and burn).

What was that?

The flying Santa I got in the mail was cute, though.

Now, I'm jealous.

[The Mad Monk]

Pyramids was the first expansion pack to MKungeons. It's main distinction, according to many, was the way Wizkids recycled figures by putting new heads on the body molds -- look at a minotaur warrior from Dungeons, and then an ettin from Pyramids to see what I mean. People found the new heros less than inspiring, even considering that all heros now also had a faction, making them dual-factioned. That there were no Elemental League heros at all was galling to the players that liked that faction. From what I hear, it's selling very poorly.

[Alexander's Horse]

ANALYSIS: Eerie echoes of war

By RICHARD SALE, UPI Intelligence Correspondent

Reading in Thursday's Los Angeles Times that the supply lines for U.S.
3rd Division "have been stretched," and that the division was "alarmingly
low on water and also in danger of running out of food," made me think of
the eerie resemblance, so far, of the current U.S. war with Iraq and the
disastrous British campaign there in 1916.
In November of 1914, after Britain had declared war on Turkey, the
British Arab Bureau in Cairo had tried to foment an Arab rebellion that
would topple the Ottoman Empire. What followed was a horrible catastrophe,
much of it having to do with overextended supply lines and not having
enough effectively massed troops.
In 1914, as the war began, there were small numbers of British troops in
Iraq or Mesopotamia as it was called, stationed there to protect British
oil supplies in Iran. Soon several thousand more British forces appeared
to occupy the southern Iraqi city of Basra.
The Turkish response was feeble: Basra was miles distant from the main
Turkish forces massed at Baghdad. But in April 1915, an ambitious new
British commander, Sir John Nixon, had arrived on the scene, and he was
quick to sent his best operational officer, Maj-Gen. Charles Townshend, in
search of new victories. Despite Townshend's reluctance, Nixon sent him
marching up to Baghdad.
As one historian noted, such a march would have required for its success,
large masses of troops, hospital equipment, river transport, artillery and
supplies plus a mastery of logistics to have any chance at all. The
country was mosquito infested and there were no roads. More importantly,
the troops would need tons of ammunition and food, because the troops were
marching rapidly away from their secure supply line in the south.
Townshend furiously fought his way through to Ctesiphon, only 25 miles
from Baghdad, but soon the Turks had a new, very capable German commander,
Field Marshal Colman von der Goltz who quickly marshaled 40,000 new
Turkish troops to confront Townsend's force of 4,500, which was running
increasingly short of food and ammunition.
Townshend suddenly knew he was in trouble. Townshend wanted to retreat
250 miles south and make a stand, but his troops
were worn out, and he placed his forces on the defensive at al Kut, then a
mere mud village in a loop of the river. Goltz moved to besiege him and
sent more troops south the block any escape.
Or rescue. Townshend had food to last until April (chiefly because his
force had
suffered a thousand casualties), but he played a disastrous card, telling
superiors he could only hold out until January of 1916. This meant that
instead of putting together a relief force that could deal a single,
massive pulverizing blow to the Turks, the British rescue forces were
rushed in piecemeal and were destroyed piecemeal: they suffered 25,000
casualties.
In April, Townshend finally surrendered after a siege of 146 days. By
then he was mentally unbalanced, but the Turks allowed him to live in
luxury in captivity at Constantinople. His men were less fortunate.
Between the beginning of the campaign until Townsend's surrender, he had
lost 10,000 men. Those that lived to surrender all died as captive slaves
on Turkish railway gangs.
To David Fromkin, a prominent Middle East historian, the tragedy lay in
trying to go too far with too little, and with the fact Townsend kept
moving to the very end of his supply line while his enemy waited,
well-supplied, well-led, at the very beginning of his.
It was a humilating defeat inflicted by an enemy the British had always
pictured as ineffectual.

[DanS]

Excellent story.

Good thing we've got air assets and well developed logistics.

[Alexander's Horse]

That region has been quite a graveyard for armies, from Roman legions right through. Its full of swamps.

My favorite story is that of the death of Crassus, Caesar's ally and a famously avaricious man, who died there by having molten gold poured down his throat by the Parthians after his legion had been destroyed.

Alexander the Great also died there, either of wounds received in India or more probably of malaria.

[Drake Tungsten]

Its full of swamps.

Not anymore. Saddam drained a large number of them in his ethnic cleansing campaigns against the Marsh Arabs.

[Alexander's Horse]

He can flood them again.