Iraq War Is Drawing Less Support Than Vietnam Did at Same Stage

[sabra]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aO9FvxAJz8Pw&refer=us

Iraq War Is Drawing Less Support Than Vietnam Did at Same Stage

May 9 (Bloomberg) -- Three years into major combat in Vietnam, 28,500 U.S. service members had perished, millions of families were anxious about the military draft and antiwar protests had spread to dozens of college campuses.

Today, at the same juncture in the Iraq war, about 2,400 American soldiers have died, the U.S. military consists entirely of volunteers and public dissent is sporadic.

There's one other difference: The war in Iraq is more unpopular than was the Vietnam conflict at this stage, polls show.

More Americans -- 57 percent -- say sending troops to Iraq was a mistake than the 48 percent who called Vietnam an error in April 1968, polls by the Princeton, New Jersey-based Gallup Organization show. That's because more people believed that Vietnam was crucial to U.S. security, scholars say.

[Hissyspit]

1. Listen to this crap:

``You're not comparing apples to apples,'' said John Brabender, a Republican political consultant in Leesburg, Virginia. ``You did not have cable news or the Internet. What expansive news programming has created is a larger voice for dissent, a larger discussion and a comfort level to express it that you've never seen.''

[Hissyspit]

3. How come these stories never mention the massive civilian death toll?

[saigon68]

5. Its hidden

And in President Cheney's mind they're only islamic rag-heads.

[genie_weenie]

11. Of course, * and Dicky just stole lines out of

McKinley's playbook from the Christianizing and pacifying of the Philippines 100 years ago.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

4. the rest of the article is pretty good... laying out the issues...

I do think the internet has something to do with quicker reaction. (see my post below)
However, Cable news is what's holding it back.

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. I really wish we could cut the tongues out of the GOP spinmeisters.

What criminals. Maybe they know that if the Merry Go Round stops, so will their power.

[Brazenly Liberal]

8. He's right.

All those things have given a greater voice to dissent.

What he fails to mention is that, on the other hand, those things have also given a greater voice to the administration and its supporters. Cable News has brought us Fox and there's DU, but also FR.

Sorry, John Old Boy, but in the end, this administration and it's Decider and its war have to stand or fall on their own merits. That thud you hear is reality.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

2. It's the internet...

It's why they are so rabid about trying to give control of the net over to the Corporations who are in bed with them.

During Vietnam they learned not to let the images make it to TV, so we see none of it there.

Here, we are connected almost in real time. They cannot stop us. And it scares them. :)

[The Backlash Cometh]

7. If history is fair, they will someday write that WWIII was stopped by

the Pajama Brigade!

[0007]

16. There is that strong possibility.

The Pajama Brigade appears to be the controlling factor.

[enigma000]

9. wrong war to compare it too

The Vietnam War ramped up slowly. Iraq was sudden and fast - I would compare it to the Korean War. Or maybe the counter-insurgency in the Philippines after the Spanish-American War (if records were kept well during that period)

[coalition_unwilling]

17. Iraq is like Vietnam on crack!! (n/t)

[oc2002]

10. the war in Iraq is over, there is only causualties and those that will be

causualties.

There is a civil war that is about to errupt, and it will be a blood bath of thousand of civilians. We can not control the situation there any longer.

[slackmaster]

12. "Same stage"???

The stage at which the USA has lost 28,500 service members compared to the stage at which we've lost 2,400?

:wtf:

The numbers probably have something to do with the fact that there are enough people around who actually remember the disaster of Vietnam, which occurred at a time when millions of people remembered the glory of World War II and were still very concerned about world domination by Communism.

[meganmonkey]

15. THere was a great analysis done a year or two ago

published on Slate that explains that the situations are much more similar than the numbers make it seem - because of technological improvements and more medical treatment in the feild fewer soldiers are dying but many more are permanently damaged (that would have died in Nam).

I'm gonna try to find it.....

Okay, here it is:

Iraq 2004 Looks Like Vietnam 1966
Adjusting body counts for medical and military changes.
By Phillip Carter and Owen West
Posted Monday, Dec. 27, 2004, at 6:34 PM ET


Soldiers have long been subjected to invidious generational comparison. It's a military rite of passage for new recruits to hear from old hands that everything from boot camp to combat was tougher before they arrived. The late '90s coronation of the "Greatest Generation"—which left many Korean War and Vietnam War veterans scratching their heads—is only the most visible cultural example.

Generational contrasts are implicit today when casualties in Iraq are referred to as light, either on their own or in comparison to Vietnam. The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, for example, last July downplayed the intensity of the Iraq war on this basis, arguing that "it would take over 73 years for U.S. forces to incur the level of combat deaths suffered in the Vietnam war."

But a comparative analysis of U.S. casualty statistics from Iraq tells a different story. After factoring in medical, doctrinal, and technological improvements, infantry duty in Iraq circa 2004 comes out just as intense as infantry duty in Vietnam circa 1966—and in some cases more lethal. Even discrete engagements, such as the battle of Hue City in 1968 and the battles for Fallujah in 2004, tell a similar tale: Today's grunts are patrolling a battlefield every bit as deadly as the crucible their fathers faced in Southeast Asia.


Continue Article


http://www.slate.com/id/2111432/

[iamahaingttta]

13. That was before the Tet Offensive...

I wonder what the Iraq version of Tet will be?
Iranians pouring over the border?
Turks pouring over the border?
Nukes?

[cliss]

14. Here are some reasons why Iraq

has less support at the same stage:

1) Iraq was well-known, long before the US marched in. The war drums had been beating for a long time before we actually dropped the bombs. The world had time to understand what was going on. There were protests, millions of people were out in the streets.

2) Public opinion was negative on this war long before it became the quagmire it is today. People knew what was going to happen. VietNam did not have that negative connotation.

3) This war was started by an unpopular president. Kennedy had much higher support figures. He got the troops in to VietNam, and then Johnson escalated the involvement.

4) This war was built on lies. Again, you could say that VietNam was built on lies, but at least it wasn't a clear-cut thing like VietNam was known for having oil reserves.

5) Iraq has cost more at this point than VietNam. We've shelled out $300 billion, and all of that is in borrowed funds. I believe in today's dollars, VietNam cost less.