[NYTr] Damn, It's 'Nam

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Toronto Sun via Info Clearing House - Sep 10, 2007
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18352.htm

Damn, it's 'Nam

Americans are now in a familar tight spot

By Eric Margolis

We all know what "deja vu" is. But I recently read of a condition
psychiatrists call "jamais vu." That's where one sees something very
familiar, but cannot identify it.

Both the White House and U.S. military seemed gripped by jamais vu.

Many of the same mistakes made in the Vietnam War are being repeated in
Iraq and Afghanistan, but neither the White House, Pentagon, nor U.S.
field commanders seem to recognize or understand them.

This week, Gen. David Petreaus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, will
issue a report on the "progress" his troops are making in Iraq in the
face of serious problems, and hint at future troop reductions.

The report will speak of important security successes in Baghdad and
Anbar province. Gen. Petreaus is a very smart, highly respected
commander, but one suspects his report will unfortunately be the latest
example of jamais vu syndrome.

U.S. commanders in Iraq, like their Canadian counterparts in
Afghanistan, keep proudly reporting how their men have occupied
villages or towns, killed scores of "suspected terrorists" (usually
thanks to air attack), and forced the enemy to flee.

They do not seem to understand they are fighting a fluid guerrilla war
in which territory and body counts mean little.

GUERILLA WAR

Mao Zedong perfectly described the principles of such guerilla war:
"When the enemy advances, withdraw; when he stops, harass; when he
tires, strike; when he retreats, pursue."

The "successes" being reported from Iraq and Afghanistan are illusory.

We heard exactly the same story during the Vietnam War, when U.S.
military spokesmen trumpeted daily glowing reports about enemy body
counts, strategic hamlets created, Viet Cong tunnels blown up, hearts
and minds won over, and smiling children waving little American flags.

While the U.S. was "winning" all these little daily battles, Communists
were winning the war.

Institutional memory rarely exceeds 10 years.

Most of Vietnam's bitter lessons, paid for by the blood of 58,000
Americans, have been totally forgotten by the White House and Pentagon.

But don't blame the soldiers. Once again, U.S. fighting men in Iraq and
Canadians in Afghanistan have been sent into no-win wars by their
poorly informed, badly advised civilian masters, and ordered to keep
coming up with rosy progress reports.

I have covered numerous guerilla wars in my time and have never seen
Western powers win a single one. Yet we keep forgetting this hard
lesson.

We have also forgotten the great Gen. Douglas MacArthur's warning after
Korea, "never fight a land war in Asia."

The much ballyhooed Petreaus report will be a key part of the game of
political chicken President George Bush is playing with the
Democratic-controlled Congress, which wants to withdraw U.S. forces
from Iraq.

AVOIDING BLAME

Bush appears determined to keep the war going until his term expires to
avoid blame for defeat in Iraq.

Congress is trying to lay all the blame on Bush, get him to admit
defeat, and evade its own shameful role in authorizing the trumped-up
Iraq War.

But Congress is in a jam. If U.S. troops do withdraw, Iraq may fall
into even worse chaos than it now suffers -- which a Democratic
president will inherit.

In an election year, Republicans will blast Democrats as "defeatists"
for "cutting and running" and "losing Iraq."

That's why worried leading Democrats are now backing off calls for
total withdrawal and mumbling about partial pullbacks and "training
Iraqi forces."

Meanwhile, the administration refuses to admit Iraq has no real
government or army, and is an anarchic stew of competing Shia militias,
tribal chiefs, death squads, 22 Sunni resistance groups, and breakaway
Kurds. Iran is becoming the real power in Iraq.

Polls show 80% of Iraqis want U.S. forces out. The U.S. occupation is
largely responsible for unleashing Shia ethnic cleansing that has
created four million Iraqi refugees.

History does not repeat itself, but men's mistakes and follies do.

The latest sombre example is Iraq, where our memory of Vietnam is ...
jamais vu.