- Home :
- Who We Are :
- Speakers / Bios :
- Media / PR :
- Library :
- Multimedia :
- Calendar :
- Links :
Our Call:
Let Iraqis Live
Bring Our Troops Home Now
Bring Them All Home Alive!
Those who will not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
The following comparison of the Vietnam and Iraq wars was written by Karl Meyer of Nashville Greenlands.
| VIETNAM 1963-1975 | IRAQ 2003-2005 | |
|---|---|---|
| 1) | Fabricated "Gulf of Tonkin attack" fools Congress. | "Weapons of Mass Destruction" claims fool Congress. |
| 2) | Upwards of 2 Million Vietnamese civilians die. ( Lots of images on TV screens) |
100,000 Iraqis die and counting. ( TV images suppressed ) |
| 3) | 55,000 American soldiers die. | Over 1,700 American soldiers dead, so far. |
| 4) | Tens of thousands wounded, physically and mentally; treatment inadequate. | Thousands wounded, so far; veterans’ benefits cut. |
| 5) | Agent Orange health effects denied. | Depleted uranium health effects denied. |
| 6) | Flag draped coffins come home. Johnson, McNamara, Nixon attend funerals. |
Flag draped coffins concealed from view. Bush, Rumsfeld ignore funerals, media follows suit. |
| 7) | Arrogant Defense Secretary McNamara sees "light at the end of the tunnel". | Arrogant Defense Secretary Rumsfeld sees "long hard slog" to victory. |
| 8) | Demonstration elections held, "Free Elections" celebrated by press. | Elections secured from reluctant Bush by Shia majority: press credits Bush with securing "Free Elections", Voter insistence on US withdrawal ignored. |
| 9) | Resistance and casualties keep growing. | Resistance and casualties keep growing. |
| 10) | President Johnson’s domestic "War On Poverty" lost to military spending | Bush throws up hands: can’t fund health care and other urgent social needs. |
| 11) | U.S. allies angry and alienated. | U.S. allies angry and alienated. |
| 12) | "Vietnamization" plan to train South Vietnam Army, and gradually withdraw U.S. troops | Attempts to train Iraqi Army to take brunt for fighting (permanently backed up by U.S. military bases) countered vigorously by Iraqi resistance. |
| 13) | U.S. troops finally withdrawn after eleven years | U.S. plans fourteen permanent military bases and the largest embassy in the world. |
| 14) | Two years later, total collapse of the client army and government. | Iraqi government facing more and more entrenched and sophisticated resistance movement the longer U.S. stays, leading to prospect of permanent civil war even after inevitable U.S. withdrawal. |
| 15) | No war reparations paid; Carter calls damage from war “mutual” | Iraqis may be forced to pay 65 billion of Saddam Hussein’s odious war debt despite past U.S. support for Saddam Hussein. |
top
