[Marinir] [Chronicle] "Vietnam Syndrome"

[Yap Hong Gie]

Sejarah kekalahan perang AS berulang kembali!
Simak perbandingan indikator yang paralel dengan perang Vietnam .......


http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/4794324.html

Editorial
May 10, 2007, 8:17PM
Vietnam syndrome
The consequences of U.S. defeat in Iraq would be much greater than they were 
in Vietnam.
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle


As the war in Iraq drags on into its fifth year, comparisons to the Vietnam 
War grow more frequent and persuasive.
There are some parallels, as there are to all wars, but key differences 
between Vietnam and Iraq also deserve noting.

As in Vietnam, the United States faces an enemy that cannot be distinguished 
from the civilian population.
A preliminary hearing for Marines charged with killing 24 civilians in the 
Iraqi town of Haditha recalls the U.S. massacre at My Lai.

As in Vietnam, the United States is fighting a war that can't be decisively 
won because a determined, seemingly inexhaustible enemy would rather die 
than cease killing.

In Iraq, the United States again is allied to a democratic government that 
cannot successfully defend itself, no matter how much aid it receives.
As it did following the Vietnam War, the United States might wind up having 
to resettle hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who took our side in the war but 
would risk being murdered if they remained in their country after U.S. 
withdrawal.

Similar to President Lyndon Johnson's experience, President Bush lost 
popular American support for the war as U.S. casualties mounted.
Like Johnson, Bush is unwilling to withdraw. Repeating the 1960s, it will 
take a change in leadership to end U.S. combat involvement in Iraq.

In Vietnam, the United States faced a united, determined enemy: communist 
North Vietnam and its Viet Cong allies.
In Iraq, U.S. troops battle a multifaceted enemy: Saddam loyalists, Shiite 
militias and imported terrorists with ties to al-Qaida.
These enemies can hardly be identified, much less decisively defeated or 
negotiated with.

In Vietnam, the United States spent hundreds of billions of dollars, 
suffered 400,000 casualties and inflicted more than 1 million.
In Iraq, the financial cost is almost as high, but U.S. casualties number in 
the thousands.
Iraqi combat and civilian deaths are difficult to calculate but probably 
exceed 100,000.


The most telling difference between the war in Iraq and the one in Vietnam 
is the most dangerous.
When the United States could not prevail in Vietnam, it withdrew, with 
little consequence to U.S. strategic interests or the regional balance of 
power. U.S. withdrawal from Iraq could result in another rogue regime bent 
on anti-Western terrorism and aggression.
Alternatively, civil war resulting in complete anarchy and a failed state 
would offer global terrorists another base from which to operate with 
impunity.

In some ways, Americans might come to wish the war in Iraq were more like 
the Vietnam War, not less.