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Iraq is NOT Vietnam....

A. N Vietnam had the backing and Supplyof a Super Power the USSR..and the threat of mutual anhilation was the over riding determinate of policy in S Vietnam

B. Ho Chi Mihn was a Nationalist who wanted to unify his country and thus had the bulk of the people behind him. There is no situation like that in Iraq.

C. The USA only supported the French in IndoChina because we needed them as allies against the USSR in Europe....the US knew that it was a losing cause all long....until LBJ and Kennedies Best and Brightest came along.

D. Iraq isn't even like Afganistan...when the USSR invaded the USA was suppling the Mohadjin arms and supplies.

Iraq is more like Yugoslavia....an artifically created nation with disparate population...Sunies, Shieties, and Kurds

All heir apparent to the political process in Iraq were eliminated by Sodamn.... infrastructure was left to decay by him etc

Sodamns regime was more along the lines of being a Gangster than a Government...to have left him in place was to keep US forces in Saudi, and Kuwait to keep him in check. which were underlying causes for radicalization in Saudi


Now here is a flaw in American thinking... Americans have watched 2 much TV where at the end of an hour the bad guy is caught and the problem is resolved. We want to resolved our conflicts nice and neatly in an hour...and if that doesn't occur we begin to think something is wrong, that maybe it is undoable...maybe we shouldn't be doing this...

Also don't forget that there is a Political Party that is out of power and is stirring the pot as much as it can so that in 2004 they can get in power again...so things may not be as bad as the Nay says want you to believe.

Also take a look at the Stock Market as a Bell Weather of economic, and war related reality .it has rallied strongly since March...and shows no sign of underlying weakness...

What do you expect in Iraq... a country that for 30 years has been run by a Gangster, has fallen apart and never really should have been a country in the first place to be put back together again and running smoothly? In what 3 months???

Is America that Gun Shy and begin to think when the going isn't smooth that this could be another Vietnam? Since we have embarked upon this course of action we need to keep plodding along fixing one problem at a time, and keeping the lid on those who want to destabilize the situation. Until some kind of Stable government can be put into place. I do think that the more pockets that money comes from to fix the place the better though.