1405:IS IRAQ AMERICAS NEW VIETNAMADELAIDE VOICES Body

fwd 9-Apr-2005

ADELAIDE VOICES is an independent news journal published every two months. Donation or subscription (10.00 AUD-Yr) can be send to: The Editor, Adelaide Voices Inc, PO Box 6042, Halifax St 5000, Australia. And the AV is the only publication that I know of doesn't have a website of its own.-- U Ne Oo.

ADELAIDE VOICES APR-MAY 2005

IS IRAQ A NEW VIETNAM

By Stephen Darley (is a member of NOWAR and teaches at the University of South Australia)

The parallels are increasing between the US and Australian experience in Vietnam and currently in Iraq. A large and growing number of people are saying so and the rising tone of shrill denial by the US and Australian governments only tends to confirm the relevance of the comparison. Yet our government nevertheless commits 450 more troops to this quagmire!

But analogus is not identical, and it is important to be more specific about both the similarities and the key difference with Vietnam. It is possible to gain these insights using recent mainstream US publications -- the debate is considerably more open in the US than in Australia. Most of this material we don't hear because our own media in Australia have mostly decided to ignore Iraq.

The Iraqi resistance is large, strongly supported and diverse.In fact the small al Queda-aligned groups seems to be the only ones other resistance groups openly criticise, because they kill too many Iraqis.

The Iraqi resistance is getting more recruits and becoming better at fighting the US and its allies. The various factions of the insurgency are usually described by American officansl as hiving in total perhaps 10,000-20,000 members -- and nearly ten thousands Iraqis are imprisoned for activities buttumed to be related to the inusrgency.

Either the US has clost ot the whole insurgency in jail, or they're holding an awful lot of innocent people, or the insurgency is far bigger than anyone cares to imagine!

Cities all over Iraq are totally outside the control of either the US forces or the government of Iraq. Not only Ramadi and Samarra, but other population centres in central Iraq are virtually self-contained city-states says The Asia Times (12-1-05).

The New York Times reports (21-2-05) that attacks on the oil and energy infrastructure "have reached a degree of coordination and sophistication not seen before, Iraqi and U.S. officials say." Meanwhile, Time magazine (20-2-05) reports that US diplomats and intelligence offficers are conducting secret talks with Iraq's Sunni insurgents on ways to end fighting there, citing Pentagon and other sources.

Isn't that a telling sign that the US realizes they can't win militarily? But this will come to nothing, because the only unnegotiable minumum demand for tany resistance leaders who want to keep the suppprt of their fighters the departure of the US, and that is something the US can't contemplate because of its political and economic implications.

Joint Chies of Staff Chairman General Richard Myers told USA Today ( 172-05) the US military is stretched thin and would have problems reacting as quickly and effectively as commanders would like if it had to go to war with Iran or North Korea.

Already, key measures of the level of insurgent violence against American forces in Iraq, numbers of dead, wounded and insurgent attacks have suggested that insurgents are growing more proficient, reports AAP (30-12-04).

Grimly, US combat rests have now pbutted the 1,500 mark (whilst the Iraqi rest toll can only be estimated at between 100,000 and 200,000. How to cope ? Well, the Army Times (28-2-05) says some US troops in Iraq are given drugs such as Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil, as well as sleeping drugs, to help keep them fit for combat duty, according to a top military psychiatrist and physicians in the field.

Does this remind you of Vietnam? It should. The US military a year ago was suffering 25 attacks per day, now it is averaging 60 per day. Urban guerilla warefare is the nasties was imaginable, and the US is getting nowhere. but Australia has committed 450 more troops -- is this not idiocy?

The LA times reports (20-2-05) any mention of military victory has become notable by its absence. Tacitly, the Bush administration has all but given up any expectation of defeating the enemy. In short, U.S. troops today are no longer fighting to win, but simply to buy time.

Two years after the dash on Baghdad seemingly affirmed the invincibility of the US armed forces, the actual limits of American power now lay exposed for all to see.

In the USA it is becoming more and more difficult to gain and keep recruits and retain serving soidiers.

Figures released recently have supported evidence of the shortfall in Army, Marines and National Guard targets. In response, the National gurd is offering a reenlistment bonus of $15,000 in an effort to bloster its ranks, according to the New York times (19-2-05).

The "coalition of the Willing" is increasingly unwilling. Spain pulled out all their troops last year, and now Portugal, the Netherlands, Ukraine and Hungary are doing of have done the same. And yet the Australian Government is putting more troops into Iraq. This is foolish blind faith in the US.

The longer term US solution to the Iraq situation is supposedly to hand the war over to Iraqi forces. But the US's Iraqi collaborator armed forces are hopelessly unable to sustain the war on their own, and are continually crumbling and having to be reconstructed.

More recently, Pentagon hype claimed 140,000 trained and equipped Iraqi troops were set to go toe to toe against an estimated 15,000 insurgents.

But when congressional pressure from both Republicans and Democrats lit fire around the feet of both Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and Joint chiefs chairman General Richard Myers, they were quick to admit that only 40,000 Iraqi soldiers were for combat. The rest, according to Myers, "were useful in less-taxing jobs .. in relatively stable southern Iraq."

The key similarities with Vietnam are the escalation of US (and Australian) commitments at the same time as the resistance is growing in both quality and quanbreasty; the "blood-supply" of further recruits is running into more and more difficulties and despite the much-hyped elections, Iraq's people show no sign of an increasing desire to fight for futher US occupation of their country.

However, there are two key differences with Vietnam: the much greater speed with which the unfavourable developments for the US are unfolding, in a context where they can't dare contemplate the draft ( discontent would explode in the US); and the far greater strategic and economic significance of Iraq.

The loss of the Vietnam war was a humiliation and a significant blow to the status of the US: but decisive strategic losses did not result and economic life-lines were not cut. But the four greatest oil production-reserve countries globally are Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and Venezuela. The US control over Saudi Arabia is highly vulnerable ( hence the shift of permanent military bases from there to Iraq); whilst US attempts to overthrow or undermine support for the leaders of Iran and Venezuela have signally failed.

Iraq is even more vital therefore for the whole Gulf region, not only Iraq itself. The US economic elites cannot contemplate the nightmares an actively anti-US successor government taking over in Iraq in the wake of a US withdrawal, possibly cutting off oil supplies (which Iran is currently threatening) and knocking over the Saudi domino in turn.

The US can't get out of Iraq and can't win the war without hundreds of thousands more troops which means the draft and all its political consequences. So this is a quagmire indeed: and our government is trapping Australia in a quicksand alongside the US. by Stephen Darley.END -- POST: Dr U Ne Oo, 18 Shannon Place,Adelaide SA5000,AUSTRALIA