April 07, 2004

Is Current insurgency Iraq's Tet Offensive? Matt Yglesias seems to think so.

This is not a totally inaccurate tale, at least in the sense that, in purely military terms, America "won." But what really happened was that the offensive's scale and success in inflicting casualties demonstrated that the American leadership had either been lying to the public, deluding itself, or both and that it had no real idea of what it was trying to do in Vietnam or how it planned to achieve it.
Yglesias seems to think that we have already lost Iraq. I certainly don't think the Bushies could ever win Iraq over. They do nothing but make mistake after mistake. What does everyone else think?
posted by Sullivan 20 years ago
  • possibly.
  • The analogy is simply silly. The whole current insurgency is a result of a monumental tactical blunder...a blunder that was committed not by Tommy Franks, but by Rumsfeld and Co. Their prize was Baghdad and Saddam. They didn't bother to clear all of the towns and villages that the Iraqi army went to ground in. They left a substantial portion of those guys still armed and unmolested. I missed the Tet Offensive by two years, but I do know that what's currently going on in Iraq isn't even a pimple on the butt of the Tet Offensive. Is it rough? Yep. Are people dying? Yep. Am I concerned about it? Yep. I have a nephew there with the 1st Marines. The point is, is that it's completely assinine to try and make this comparison. The current round of American dead is on the Neocon's heads for gross mismanagement at the front end of the conflict. Even at that, this is going to be a mop up operation. It will probably last a few weeks and then the handwringing subsides and the ill informed pundits crawl back under whatever rock that spawned them.
  • Despite the insistence of "Old Media" that blogs are worthless, every once in a while a blogger will come up with such a revolutionary idea, such an astoundingly original thought, that you think, "wow, maybe these armchair politicians are on to something." Such is the case with this post. Counting the wind up to war, the pro-war/anti-war argument has been raging for more than two years. Although it's a wonder that someone didn't think of it sooner, Yglesias has earned my respect for this gem: Iraq = Vietnam. Profound stuff!
  • Goetter doesn't seem to be around at the minute, but fortunately we have a new champion curmudgeon to keep us honest. Welcome, de Carabas!
  • I heart de Carabas.
  • Coot, with all due respect, you're completely wrong about Tet. MetaFilter's down, so I can't link to the comment I made there addressing this point, but Tet was not some huge national uprising, it was a last desperate attempt by a decimated NLF to generate something, and it failed miserably after a few exciting moments. Fortunately for them, most of those moments happened in the media spotlight of Saigon, and the shock of seeing the embassy besieged when they'd been assured the situation was under control caused the American public to lose faith in our progress and was the beginning of the long process of withdrawal, even though as a military operation Tet was a miserable failure. The situation in Iraq is already worse than it was in South Vietnam in early '68, and it doesn't look like it's going to get better any time soon. It's a perfectly fair comparison, although of course it remains to be seen what the effect on public opinion will be. As I said in the blue, I'm betting we'll be out of Iraq in a year (with or without desperate collaborators hanging on to helicopter ladders).
  • At this point I would like to mention that Coot uses the word "flimflammed" on his user page, and therefore I really like him.
  • One thing about Vietnam was that the people of that country wouldn't fight for democrasy.
    In Kufa, Najaf and Baghdad's own Sadr City, the government's new cops handed over police cars and police stations to the militia without any reported resistance. In some instances, the cops actually joined forces with Sadr's militants.
  • Languagehat, I'm pointing out that during the Tet Offensive, the NVA and the VC flat peppered our asses. Tactically, it was initially a big hit. We lost a lot of guys in that. Admittedly, I didn't arrive in country until '69, but when Tet rolled around two years later, everyone was real jittery. This rebellion doesn't have the immediate intensity that Tet did and when it's done, I think we'll see that the insurgents lack the resolve and the guttiness of the NVA. I have a hard time seeing this rebellion being at all protracted.
  • "flat peppered our asses" Coot, I'm so glad you're a member here I think I'm-a gonna cry. Not only do you bring your own rich experience and perspective, but you say cool stuff like that. Beautiful.