In Iraq, they're revisiting Vietnam-era counterinsurgency

[ECH1969]

It's a telling fact that the hot book among Iraq strategists this season is "A Better War," an upbeat account of American counterinsurgency policy in the last years of the Vietnam conflict.

I noticed that the commander of U.S. Central Command, General John Abizaid, was reading it when I traveled with him in September. The influential State Department counselor Philip Zelikow read the book earlier this year. And I'm told it can be found on bookshelves of senior military officers in Baghdad.

Indeed, Sorley argues that by early 1972, the United States had effectively won the war and could turn the fighting over to its South Vietnamese allies.

By Sorley's account, it was politics back in America that turned victory into defeat, by blocking American support for the Saigon government after North Vietnamese troops invaded the South en masse in 1974 and 1975.

http://www.iht.com/getina/files/287766.html

[HereSince1628]

1. I saw Vietnam in 1972. If I was looking at some sort of victory

that victory sure as shit didn't belong to the US or South Vietnam, and had nothing to do with a war against North Vietnam.

If the big heads in our military are reading that sort of story and believing it we are in deep deep doo-doo.

[izzie]

2. If the people at home lost that war I am glad. BUT------------

I do not believe it. Their was also a book, which I do not recall the name, that was in print after the Fr. lost that said they could not have taking the country back and either could we. The people were not for us or the Fr.:patriot: