Movin' on now...no, really.

[muckefuck]

Why did I struggle to formulate a reply to Mr Seat-Warmer when James Lileks had already done it?

I am struck once again by the incomparable hold VIETNAM has over some people. They don’t seem to realize how the use of this inapt example demonstrates their inability to grasp the nature of new and different conflicts. When I was in college, El Salvador was Vietnam. When I was in Washington, Kuwait was Vietnam. Afghanistan was briefly Vietnam when we hadn’t won the war after a week. It’s Warholian: in the future, all conflicts will be Vietnam for 15 minutes.

Vietnam was an anomaly. Vietnam was perhaps the least typical war we’ve ever fought, but somehow it’s become the Gold Standard for wars – because, one suspects, it became inextricably bound up with Nixon, that black hole of human perfidy, and it coincided with the golden glory years of so many old boomers who now clog the arteries of the media and academe. A gross overgeneralization, I know. But it’s a fatal conceit. If you’re always fighting the last war you’ll lose the next one. Even worse: Vietnam was several wars ago.

Every time I discuss the current conflict with a boomer, I know they're going to bring up Vietnam. It's utterly predictable and inevitable. It was so refreshing to hear the naysayers in Afghanistan bring up the British invasion for a change. At last! A germane comparison instead of the same old hammer being brought out again to pound yet another pointy thing that looks strikingly like a nail if you happened to be in college in the late 60's or early 70's.

Comments

Nutshell redux

[arkanjil.livejournal.com]

Age, I think, translates into alack of experience in general, especially with the dealings and travails of life and death and living. The average age in Vietnam was 19, while it was something like 25 or so for WW2. Those troops were, i would propose, less prepared emotionally and socially for the situations that they faced. (One of the issues in today's Iraqi situation (to me) is that the troops are for the most part also 19-23, even up to the frontline leaders. Such may well be more inclined, i feel, to shoot first, ask questions later, which would in turn lead to situations that excarabate the raw emotions between the occupiers and the occupied.) The issue of all volunteer vs draftees is interesting, tho i cant see how it affects the current day, other than the troops might be more 'dedicated.' The issue about how the reserves are being treated is a big one, tho I heard tonight that military reenlistment rates are still high.

The gueralla thing really is more about the nature of the oppenent faced rather than how often that style wins. By their nature, guerellas are much scarier and demoralizing than regular troops to face- you never know who they are, or how and when they will strike. Vietnam was the first wide scale war where we faced such opponents in masses- I don't think the Viet Kong ever fielded a formal troop line as such until the end. And yes, while the gueralla force got pounded into the dirt and almost never won a strategic victory, thier tactical value was huge. Ho Chi Minh said something like all we can do is throw bodies at them until they sicken of it. If you pay that price, it does work: Algeria, Lebannon, and Afghanistan are examples, to name a few.

Outside money is another key ingrediant tho, and def, the Sadrists (among others) are getting money and support from outside; I've read reports on the ground of men driving around rebel held areas in big cars with cash and weapons to hand out as needed. Probably Iranians, tho I would put no bets that such an operation would get any manner of formal approval from the heads of thier governement, or even from the mullahs (collectively). It could well be the Syrians tho, or even the Saudis, those sneaky devils. Or all of them; given how many would love to see the US get our nose bloodied, there are probably carpet baggers all over the country...

The hostility point is iffy, and more elaborately is based also in the communication issues between our troops and the populace. With Europeans during ww2, there was some cultural resnance, and a fair number of english speakers. In korea, the general populace was historiclly subservient and also grateful to be having thier fat pulled out of the fire, and the troops were facing enemy troops wearing uniforms. Vietnam, however, had a populace that had been through generations of war, and were often bullied and worse by both the Viet Kong and the South Vietnamese troops- and occasionaly by us. Worse, the enemy hid among the populace, which sowed no great love between us and the folks: who could be trusted? Thats one thing that Vietnam and Iraq have in common that we did not face before- an oppenent unwilling to fight us in the open by the common rules of war, and willing to use most any means neccesasry. Thats what i mean by the lack of deliniation between sides. I would hope that the majority of iraqis are not anti US, but there are many stories coming out of Iraq about collateral casualties.

In Iraq, we've avoided fraternization as best we could, for reasons both good and bad. The Iraqis are not subserviant peasants such as the Vietnamese often were, and of course most everyone in the country is armed to start with...

I really don't consider the Korean conflict a loss; we met the objective that we set, and probably couldn't have done better at the time, given the circumstances. in no other place until Vietnam did we lose the objective. KJII- hurrrr; don't get me started.

Anyways- hope this all makes some manner of sense; i'm terrible about being able to articulate clearly

Re: Nutshell redux

[lhn.livejournal.com]

The gueralla thing really is more about the nature of the oppenent faced rather than how often that style wins. By their nature, guerellas are much scarier and demoralizing than regular troops to face- you never know who they are, or how and when they will strike.

I'm not sure about "scarier and [more] demoralizing". By all accounts, the sudden, unavoidable death of artillery or aerial bombing is pretty hellish. It may have been called combat fatigue or shell shock rather than PTSD, but the psych problems of WWII soldiers were pretty severe. (The WWII vets just weren't as inclined to make movies about them.)

Vietnam was the first wide scale war where we faced such opponents in masses

Are you not counting the conquest of the Philippines? Why not? We invented the Colt .45 for that conflict, because the .38 was inadequate for stopping the enemy, specifically the fanatical Muslim guerrillas (the Moros). We won. (Whether we should have fought it is another question.)

Ho Chi Minh said something like all we can do is throw bodies at them until they sicken of it. If you pay that price, it does work: Algeria, Lebannon, and Afghanistan are examples, to name a few.

Afghanistan, like Vietnam, required superpower backing and training to field that force. Algeria took place against a France exhausted and shamed by WWII and demoralized by its loss Southeast Asia, where there was no strategic value to keeping colonies and diminishing interest in empire. Likewise, our reasons for being in Lebanon were comparatively weak, and the cost of pulling out apparently low. (Since the cost of our actions in Lebanon and Somalia arguably included 9/11, this is debatable, but that wasn't on the radar at the time.)

On the other hand, as noted above we won in the Philippines and held onto them for decades, until we let them go on our own terms. Likewise, the Boer guerrillas failed to keep the British from taking South Africa, the original Spanish guerrillas were inadequate to keep Napoleon out of Spain, the French resistance never pushed the Germans out of France.

The mere presence of some irregular fighters isn't itself a sign of inevitable defeat. Even the Germans had their Werewolves, to cause problems after the war had formally ended. Part of the question is the scale. As far as I can tell, there were more VC killed by the US in an average year of Vietnam than the total number of Mahdi militiamen. That could get worse for us, but it could also get better.

The hostility point is iffy, and more elaborately is based also in the communication issues between our troops and the populace. With Europeans during ww2, there was some cultural resnance, and a fair number of english speakers.

I don't think we were welcomed into Germany except insofar as they were relieved not to be under the Soviets instead. Speaking of difficulty telling friend from foe, our first landings across the Atlantic in WWII involved fighting French shore batteries in Morocco. (Language skills and cultural resonance weren't adequate to tell us their loyalties vis a vis Vichy.) Nor did our style of war generally lack for collateral damage in allied countries.

In korea, the general populace was historiclly subservient and also grateful to be having thier fat pulled out of the fire, and the troops were facing enemy troops wearing uniforms. Vietnam, however, had a populace that had been through generations of war, and were often bullied and worse by both the Viet Kong and the South Vietnamese troops- and occasionaly by us. Worse, the enemy hid among the populace, which sowed no great love between us and the folks:

I think you overestimate Korean gratitude and subservience, and underestimate the working of the same sorts of forces as in Vietnam. Kim Il-Sung started as a guerrilla against the Japanese. We massacred civilians for fear of guerrillas at No Gun Ri. Nor were those fears unfounded: as it happens, the last communist guerrilla to be captured by the South Koreans just died. She wasn't caught till 1963. But South Korea is still there (NK artillery permitting) and the guerrillas aren't.

Re: Nutshell redux

[mollpeartree.livejournal.com]

It may have been called combat fatigue or shell shock rather than PTSD, but the psych problems of WWII soldiers were pretty severe. (The WWII vets just weren't as inclined to make movies about them.)

So true. I once read an account of a WWII battle in which GIs were pinned down in foxholes on some benighted beach in the Pacific and bombarded from the air for over a month; %80 of U.S. casualties from that one were psychological. You almost never hear stuff like this about the "good war," though.