|
Insurgencies Rarely Win And Iraq Wont Be Any Different (Maybe)
The cold, hard truth about the Bush administrations strategy of surging additional U.S. forces into Iraq is that it could work. Insurgencies are rarely as strong or successful as the public has come to believe. Iraqs various insurgent groups have succeeded in creating a lot of chaos. But theyre likely not strong enough to succeed in the long term. Sending more American troops into Iraq with the aim of pacifying Baghdad could provide a foundation for their ultimate defeat, but only if the United States does not repeat its previous mistakes. Myths about invincible guerrillas and insurgents are a direct result of Americas collective misunderstanding of its defeat in South Vietnam. This loss is generally credited to the brilliance and military virtues of the pajama-clad Vietcong. The Vietnamese may have been tough and persistent, but they were not brilliant. Rather, they were luckythey faced an opponent with leaders unwilling to learn from their failures: the United States. When the Vietcong went toe-to-toe with U.S. forces in the 1968 Tet Offensive, they were decimated. When South Vietnam finally fell in 1975, it did so not to the Vietcong, but to regular units of the invading North Vietnamese Army. The Vietcong insurgency contributed greatly to the erosion of the American publics will to fight, but so did the way that President Lyndon Johnson and the American military waged the war. It was North Vietnams will and American failure, not skillful use of an insurgency, that were the keys to Hanois victory. Posted by: Steve White 2007-01-17 |
|
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=177990 |