Nam by the Numbers
Are we there again? -- Picture courtesy Wikipedia
With all the talk about increasing the troops in Iraq, I thought I'd review the Viet Nam War and see how the numbers compare between the two wars. When you tally all the statistics, Viet Nam was a deadlier quicksand pit by far. At it's height in the late 60's, we had 550,000 troops in Viet Nam. Over the 14 year stretch (from approximately 1961 to 1975) we lost @ 58,200 men; we were losing 1,000 men a month during the LBJ years. The Iraq numbers are paltry by comparison -- we only have 140,000 men in Iraq, and have lost roughly 2,900 men in the 3.75 years we've been there. Still, similarities abound. With Viet Nam, we had a highly unpopular, controversial Secretary of Defense -- Robert McNamara. An ex-Ford executive in his fifties, McNamara was far better at guestimating Edsel sales than running a war in Asia. Unlike Rumsfeld, McNamara saw the error of his ways while in office and tried to scale back our involvement. LBJ would not hear of it, and so McNamara resigned in 1967.
Viet Nam also had catch phrases similar to "Stay the course". "Vietnamization" was LBJ's concept of training the South Vietnamese to fight their own war. Sounds familiar doesn't it? "Containment" was a phrase used by both LBJ and Nixon, alluding to the domino theory that a communist Viet Nam might energize other Asian countries to rebell against capitalism. The last phrase to be bandied was "Peace with Honor", and many Viet Vets are in dispute about whether a peace with honor was achieved. The United States faced a well-organized, determined enemy and our allies, the South Vietnamese, were increasingly diffident -- even hostile to Americans who were supposed to be helping them. LBJ chose not to run in 1968, as he felt that his welcome mat was withdrawn -- students tried to levitate the Pentagon chanting, "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?"
The Viet Nam war caused terrible havoc to Southeast Asia and took many lives -- but the effect on the United States was equally marked. The war caused such a rift that violent riots (1968 Democratic Convention, Kent State) rocked the nation and students became organized in antigovernment groups: Students for a Democratic Society, the Weathermen and even spin-off groups like the Symbionese Liberation Army. We don't have student rebellion to speak of now, but we do face a monolithic, seemingly faceless enemy. It appears that Al Qaeda has supplanted Communism as the great bogeyman of the day. That's not to minimize the problem of militant Islam. We just have to keep in mind what happened 40 years ago; it should serve as a warning that 550,000 troops and 14 years were not enough to quell Viet Nam. It's also worth noting that no other dominos fell when the war ended under Ford's administration. From our 40 year vanatge point, we see that Plan A was a flop in Viet Nam. Let's hope that someone has a Plan B, C or even D for Iraq.
© 2006 blogSpotter
Labels: History, Politics, War in Iraq
posted by blogspotter @ 7:11 PM
2 Comments:
Leaving Southeast Asia did have some dire consequences for many. As soon as the U.S. left, between one and three million people were slaughtered by the Khmer Rouge who overtook Cambodia. That fact is quite freqently omitted in recounting the Vietnam War and certainly not a point that Jane Fonda or John Kerry are eager to talk about.
The topic brings to light an even bigger question, "Who cares and why?"
After teaching GED students for the past six years, I am convinced that most generations are confined within themselves.
I am not sure why, but only a handfull of indivduals in society have any interest whatsoever in events that occurred before they were born. For the most part, it is that handfull who become our community, business and political leaders. There are exceptions, but most people are only concerned with the here and now. That inborn lack of curiosity about the past perpetuates through all of society (i.e. I recently worked with a 20 year-old intern at my office who had never heard of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD or even Bob Hope).
As a result, the world will always be dealing with the same problems, only from different peoples and places. The only peace that we will ever know on earth is the peace that we create in our own immediate environment. Mankind, as a whole, will never learn from the errors of the past. Each generation is destined to experience the same problems as those who came before them. For example, it has been almost 62 years since nuclear weapons were used on Japan to end WWII. That is beyond the lifespan of many of today's leaders and most of the world's population. Being so far removed from that reality will eventually result in another nuclear episode, probably sooner than later. We are already seeing such displays in the Holocaust deniers - most of whom were born after WWII.
That is not to say that there are not those who truly care, but there are not enough people who care who can bring about fundamental change.
Have to admit, Cambodia was left off the Nam Numbers analysis. The 1-3 million deaths were the result of a 4 year "Reign of Terror" by the Khmer Rouge. It's hard to say how a continued US presence would've changed or prevented the ethnic cleansing. Iraq is getting 'cleansed' as we speak, even with us there. We face the same moral questions in other places too (Darfur, Ethiopia) and it always boils down to 'how many US troops are needed to police other peoples' affairs?'.
I think a cold calculation is made, if the truth be known. Pentagon probably valued 60,000 American lives above 3,000,000 Cambodian lives; if there isn't a stragegic purpose for securing Cambodia (or Darfur), the sacrifice of American lives is given the highest consideration. It then leaves local governments 'to their own devices' to establish peace and rational governance.
Roosevelt could've invaded Europe in 1943, but knew that one more year of battering between Russia and Germany would save American lives. We might've ended the war a year earlier but with much more loss of life to ourselves. I guess as they say "war is Hell" and nothing brings that fact home as much as the cold calculations that leaders have to go thru.
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