Iraq and Vietnam

New York Times Magazine, October 23, 2005:

In most of the 20th century's guerrilla wars, the armies of
the countries battling the insurgents have suffered serious
breakdowns in discipline. This was true of the Americans in
Vietnam, the French in Algeria and the Soviets in Afghanistan.
Martin van Creveld, a historian at Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, says that soldiers in the dominant army often
became demoralized by the frustrations of trying to defeat
guerrillas. Nearly every major counterinsurgency in the
20th century failed. "The soldiers fighting the insurgents
became demoralized because because they were the strong
fighting the weak," van Creveld says. "Everything they did
seemed to be wrong. If they let the weaker amry kill them,
they were idiots. If they attacked the smaller army, they
were seen as killers. The effect, in nearly every case, is
demoralization and breakdowns in discipline."

Over 50,000 names are listed on the Vietnam memorial.
The number of deaths of US soldiers in Iraq will soon reach 2,000.
While this number is far less than Vietnam, I fear the lasting
psychological damage on the tens of thousands of young men
and women who have served or will serve in Iraq will be
similarly widespread, and will leave a lasting mark on my generation,
as the Vietnam war did on my parents generation. Such is one legacy
of the misguided and corrupt regime... or cabal... of Bush, Rumsfeld,
Wolfowitz, Rove, Cheney, et. al.. May history remember their
arrogence, their folly, and their failure to learn a critical
lesson in foreign policy and humanity taken from their own past.