Iraq is Now Vietnam

On Monday, October 30th, the lead article in The New York Times reported the United States government had lost track of huge numbers of arms going to Iraq. The case "involv[ed] 19 different contracts and 142 delivery orders," and out of 505,093 individual weapons only 12,128 were "properly recorded," that is, their serial numbers were written down. In addition, some 13,000 weapons were unaccounted for, which included 751 missing M1-F assault rifles and nearly 100 MP-5 machine guns. Also missing were grenade launchers, shotguns, semiautomatic pistols, and sniper rifles. In the 1960s and 1970s, in South Vietnam, large shipments of American supplies, especially arms, would routinely disappear and then end up being used against the American soldiers. Just like Vietnam, American taxpayers are purchasing vast stores of weapons for Iraq only for them to find their way into enemy hands.

Today's front page shows victorious Iraqis celebrating the end of the American cordon around Sadr City, that vast Baghdad slum that has become a killing ground for American troops. The jubilant Iraqis can be seen hoisting a huge photo of Moqtada al-Sadr, the Shia Cleric and leader of the Mahdi Army, and one militia member is waving what looks to me to be an American-made 9mm pistol, one of the kinds of guns that recently went missing.

Remember, the U.S. military did not fail in Vietnam; the failure was that of American political leaders who kept the troops there in a futile attempt to change the politics of Saigon, and to impose a pro-U.S. regime there. Today, the American military is not failing in Iraq, but Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld have ordered the soldiers to do the impossible: create a viable pro-U.S. political order in Baghdad. Like Vietnam, the military will never be able to accomplish what is essentially a political objective in Iraq. Once the leap is made into the swamp of trying to transform the politics of a basket-case, post-colonial country, teaming with sectarian violence and a strong sense of nationalism, no amount of fighting, even winning battles is going to change the impossibility of attaining the desired political reality on the ground. At the close of the Vietnam War, a Vietnamese General from Hanoi was told by an American General: "You never won a single battle against us"; to which the Vietnamese General replied: "That is true, but it is also irrelevant."