Iraq IS Vietnam

Two sources provide input to that title. We are constantly reminded that Iraq is
A) Nothing like Vietnam
B) could become Vietnam
C) a quagmire like Vietnam
Well, if you look at the real battle being waged by the terrorists, Iraq IS Vietnam. Their target is the same. Their allies are the same. Our weaknesses are the same.

From Attack Machine:

For another perspective from the North Vietnamese side, there is Gen. Bui Tin, who received the unconditional surrender from the South.

Q: Was the American antiwar movement important to Hanoi’s victory?

A: It was essential to our strategy. Support of the war from our rear was completely secure while the American rear was vulnerable. Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9 a.m. to follow the growth of the American antiwar movement. (Congress and the media, anyone?)

Q: How could the Americans have won the war?

A: Cut the Ho Chi Minh trail inside Laos. If Johnson had granted [Gen. William] Westmoreland’s requests to enter Laos and block the Ho Chi Minh trail, Hanoi could not have won the war. ( ie, stay on the offense!)

Q: Anything else?

A: Train South Vietnam’s generals. The junior South Vietnamese officers were good, competent and courageous, but the commanding general officers were inept. (That's what we're doing now, in Iraq. It takes time to train good troops and even longer to train good officers.)

And from Grunt.com:

Taken from The Wall Street Journal, Thursday August 3, 1995

Question: How did Hanoi intend to defeat the Americans?

Answer: By fighting a long war which would break their will to help South Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh said, "We don't need to win military victories, we only need to hit them until they give up and get out." (Hey, Reid, Warner, you listening?)

Q: Did the Politburo pay attention to these visits? (by celebrities, like Fonda) (or Pelosi)

A: Keenly. (Ya think that AQ might do this too?)

Q: Why?

A: Those people represented the conscience of America. The conscience of America was part of its war-making capability, and we were turning that power in our favor. America lost because of its democracy; through dissent and protest it lost the ability to mobilize a will to win.

Q: What was the purpose of the 1968 Tet Offensive?

A: To relieve the pressure Gen. Westmoreland was putting on us in late 1966 and 1967 and to weaken American resolve during a presidential election year. (Expect more attacks.) Thanh proposed the Tet Offensive. Thanh was the senior member of the Politburo in South Vietnam. He supervised the entire war effort. Thanh's struggle philosophy was that "America is wealthy but not resolute," and "squeeze tight to the American chest and attack." (See media and liberals)...Johnson had rejected Westmoreland's request for 200,000 more troops...(for cutting the Ho Chi Minh trail) (Warner's guilty conscience.)We realized that America had made its maximum military commitment to the war. Vietnam was not sufficiently important for the United States to call up its reserves. We had stretched American power to a breaking point. When more frustration set in, all the Americans could do would be to withdraw; they had no more troops to send over.

Does ANY of this sound familiar? It's like the bad guys might have studied history and LEARNED ITS LESSONS!