2 years to reach 324 US deaths in Vietnam -- 7 months in Iraq

MUST READ ARTICLE

Charles Glass: There are so many echoes of Vietnam in Iraq
It took two years for US deaths to reach 324 in Vietnam. It passed that figure in seven months in Iraq

The author was ABC News Chief Mideast correspondent, 1983-1993

The US armed forces launched their first air raid against post-war Iraq last week, when F-16 fighter-bombers dropped 500-pound bombs on Tikrit. The new campaign against Iraq's resistance fighters, dubbed Operation Ivy Cyclone, recalls President Lyndon Johnson's Operation Rolling Thunder over Vietnam in 1965. That campaign of bombing Vietnam would eventually see Indochina devastated by 7 million tons of aerial explosives.

These are early days in Iraq, where the conflict between a growing percentage of the native population and the occupying forces is escalating far more rapidly than it did in Vietnam. It took two years, from 1963 to the end of 1964, for American combat deaths to reach 324. The US has surpassed that figure in only seven months in Iraq, where 398 American soldiers have died already. In the last 12 days, 38 have been killed. As for the Iraqi dead, the US does not count them with similar precision. Vietnam offers examples to the US, but it is learning the wrong lessons.

Parallels with Vietnam are asserting themselves again and again in Iraq. They start with the justification for committing American troops to battle. In both cases, politicians lied to persuade Congress and the public to go along. In 1964, the year Lyndon Johnson officially upgraded the US military role from advisory to combat, the secretaries of state and defence accused North Vietnam of attacking the USS Maddox.

Defence Secretary Robert McNamara, in a bravura performance emulated by Secretary of State Colin Powell at the UN last February, announced: "While on routine patrol in international waters, the US destroyer Maddox underwent an unprovoked attack." The only phrase corresponding to reality was that the Maddox was a destroyer. Otherwise, the routine patrol was in fact an attack on North Vietnam's shore installations. The international waters were really North Vietnam's. And the unprovoked attack was not only provoked, it did not take place at all.
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Don't forget -- the politicians and journalists, then as now, were saying the same reasons we couldn't end the damage sooner -- 'can't cut and run', 'what would it look like', 'what message would that send', etc.

:mad:

Yes this is a must read. Vietnam was a very slow ramp up. What scares me is that it seems that if there is only 1 death in Iraq on a particular day it is considered a good day, my question is how long will it be till only 10, 20, 30.....etc dead be a good day?


This makes me want to :puke:

And get on the Kucinich Peace Train. UN IN, US OUT!

:)

BTW I love your sig. :D

UN IN, US OUT!
you guys crack me up!

Even One is completely unnecesary (forgive my spelling). But, as an optimist, all I can say is at least the casualties aren't like in the Civil War... I remember reading about one battle that cost over 2000 lives in a day.... tho my knowledge of history is lacking....

I pray that the soldiers stay alive, and that the "Commander" In Chief is held accountable for the 300+ lives lost.

Thank you very much. That was an outstanding comparison, the best I can remember having seen.

Published in the UK, not here.

So please, pass it on!

:mad:

Is that so hard for all these brains to see when we all can here?

and I am none to pleased with what is going on in Iraq BUT
these figures are very misleading. I focused my studies on the vietnam war in College, so I have some knowledge here.

Regular US army troops didnt not land in Vietnam until March of 1965 when Marines landed in Danang. Prior to that, it was very much a "black war" that was staffed largely with US pilots, green berets and vietnamese locals as soldiers. In total, the numbers of troops were around 5000, if i recall correctly.

The attached graph highlights pretty well:
http://www.multied.com/vietnam/Troop.html

In Iraq, the full force of approximately 140,000 US men and women were in the field on day one -- meaning that the fatality rate is indeed much lower in Iraq.

This article talks about the death counts in the two wars.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/4201505.html

Where did this information originate? I mean...who put out the 'go-ahead' to let this out?