Sees parallels in Mideast, Vietnam
To those of us old enough to remember, I believe the current situation in Syria and Iraq feels more like Vietnam every day. We are seeing the slow drip, drip, drip of more and more troops being sent in on a regular basis. The story is that they are being sent in as “advisers.” Vietnam started the same way. Then the casualties started — a few at first, then the numbers began to grow rapidly as we sent in increasing numbers of troops — who were no longer called “advisers.” In addition the Vietnam war (like today’s) was micro-managed from the White House and the Pentagon, where politics played a more important role than actually winning the war. If you remember, “gradualism” was the word of the day — the theory was if we slowly increased the pressure on the enemy he would eventually collapse. We know how that turned out. Today the word is: “No victor, no vanquished.” Which means we have no intention of winning — a tie is the best expected outcome. Are you willing to send your sons, daughters and other family members out to be killed or maimed for life, not to win the conflict, but at best to maintain the status quo? Not me. Particularly when you know some future politician will decide the effort is too hard and calls the whole thing off — and all those young men and women will have sacrificed for nothing — again!
Gerald Clemons
Bellingham
This story was originally published November 2, 2015 at 4:01 PM with the headline "Sees parallels in Mideast, Vietnam."