More Ghosts

Once again, the ghost of Vietnam appears in BuschCheney’s Iraq misadventure. This ghost not only flies but has the appropriate nickname of “Spooky”. No spectral apparition, this particular ghost is real: the AC-130 gunship. These flying weapon platforms are now deploying to Iraq. AC-130s are not new to Iraq; they were used in the November 2004 assault on Fallujah but were based outside of Iraq. Now the Air Force will base some AC-130's in Iraq to reduce response times. (Thanks to Taylor Marsh for this story.

As long as I’m talking about similarities between Vietnam and Iraq, I shouldn’t ignore Donald Rumsfeld’s comments this week. The Defense Secretary believes that the media are misreporting the news about Iraq, thereby harming the US effort.

This misreporting, Rumsfeld said, has swayed American public opinion. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll reported yesterday that 80 percent of Americans believe that fighting between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in Iraq will lead to civil war.

[...]

“Interestingly, all of the exaggerations seem to be on one side," Rumsfeld said today, referring to recent reporting on the conflict. "It isn't as though there simply have been a series of random errors on both sides of issues. On the contrary, the steady stream of errors all seem to be of a nature to inflame the situation and to give heart to the terrorists and to discourage those who hope for success in Iraq."
[...]
"There's been a public opinion poll reporting that the readers of these exaggerations believe Iraq is in a civil war -- a majority do," Rumsfeld said, adding that faulty news reports had "an effect" on the poll results, swaying the opinion of the American people.

This is the same refrain that the militarists have been singing about Vietnam since, oh, the late 1960's. William Westmoreland spent his entire retirement and went to his grave spouting this nonsense which wholly absolves the leaders who got us into that war from any errors of judgment. It’s somebody else’s fault. BushCheney and his apologists would have Americans believe that only the press and faint-hearted traitors stand between America and success in Iraq.

It’s like a song that sticks in your head and just won’t go away. Except this one is far more deadly and pernicious.

Don’t get me wrong. I do not believe that the Iraq War is identical to the Vietnam War. The two are separated by more than time and geography. Expecting the same policies and script to replay in Iraq is to misunderstand the nature of the current conflict. See Steven Biddle’s article in Foreign Affairs for a discussion on the differences.

That said, the similarities are all too disturbing. Maybe it's just that the US is trapped with no good options.