Pullout...
What's interesting to me is I just finished reading "In Retrospect" by Robert McNamara -which goes into stunning detail about his involvement in Vietnam as Secretary of Defense from 1960-67. Not to compare the two wars (or conflicts) as similar, but there are some striking parallels in the way the government apparently handled Vietnam and the way it appears the government is handling Iraq.
I see the following parallels:
1. Lack of a clear reason for starting the conflict. In Vietnam, McNamara argues that there wasn't a clear consensus about how exactly (or even if) the fall of South Vietnam to communism would threaten the future and safety of the US. There also wasn't a clear consensus about how to deal with preventing the spread of communism into SK. This seems similar to the various reasons we've heard explaining our motives for invading Iraq (getting Saddam, getting terrorists, creating democracy, etc.) It makes me wonder if "behind the scenes" there's just as much confusion as there is out here in the public sphere.
2. Arguments about continued involvement and level of involvement. Of course, one of the main points of any Vietnam discussion is about our level of involvement. Throughout the book McNamara quotes various meetings and memos where no one could decide how long we'd need to stay there, what capacity or function our military would have, or how many troops we'd need to achieve the goals (which they also couldn't agree on). Definitely seems to match our current discussion about troop pullouts. Regarding Vietnam there began to be serious concern and discussion about a full pullout and what that would mean to the initial effort and the future.
3. The apparent lack of troop support to achieve the basic goals. In Vietnam it's generally agreed now that there just weren't enough troops. Early military estimates done in the early 60s claimed a 1:10 ratio was necessary for a counterinsurgency campaign. The Vietcong were estimated to have 100,000 and growing troops, which means a 1,000,000 commitment from the US (for a period of years). The initial surges were much smaller - the people "running the show" so to speak just couldn't agree on troop numbers and seemed to forget this statistic that their military strategists quoted for them. I've also read a few articles and such that troop support in Iraq has been insufficient to truly establish a safe and controlled environment, which is apparently our goal. Granted, I don't want to send more people over there - it seems like we need to figure it out a bit more and concentrate on our goals more - but troop numbers and ratios seem to be an important issue and a hard pill to swallow. It's also interesting to note that far larger numbers of troops were used in the 91 Gulf War - I read the Brzezinski (sp?) book "Second Chance" which compared the two. I think in '91 there were total about 750,000 troops (with a large constituent from neighboring Arab states) - I don't think we've topped 500,000 in this occupation (which is also much, much longer) and most of those are our own.
In short, I recommend the McNamara book - it really gave me a handle on some of the issues facing is with our current conflict. It also highlights the fact that war is a huge undertaking and an incredibly complex and serious issue.
Also - if I'm wrong on any of these facts - feel more than free to correct me.
Rock out.